


And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

by beastboy12



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cussing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23120503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastboy12/pseuds/beastboy12
Summary: Five is fine. Getting his siblings to see that is a different matter entirely.In which Five has a very difficult time accepting that he may not, in fact, be okay.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 98
Kudos: 966





	1. I Knock the Ice from My Bones

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE READING:
> 
> Title and chapter titles come from the song "All the King's Horses" by Karmina. Excellent song. Highly recommend.  
> This story takes place after they have averted the apocalypse somehow. In doing so, they also brought Ben back from the dead. Don't ask me how.   
> Trigger warning for sexual assault/molestation. Nothing happens beyond unwanted kissing on the neck/mouth. It's not overly graphic when describing the actual assault - it's more about the emotional/after-effects side of it.  
> Also, upon re-watching the show, it appears all of the siblings' rooms are on the ground floor. In this story they're all on the second floor (sue me).  
> (Please don't it was a joke.)  
> All of the siblings live together at the mansion. Why? It doesn't matter. They just do. Get over it.  
> Lastly, my boy Five has some major issues. It's going to take time to resolve them.

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### I Knock the Ice from My Bones

Touch was something Five was struggling to come to terms with. Even before he’d accidentally traveled to the apocalypse in a terribly misguided attempt to prove his pompous father wrong, Five had never been a huge advocate for physical contact. Sure, he had begrudgingly accepted the occasional hug from a scared Klaus or a kind Ben, but he had never been the one to initiate physical contact. It was _fine_ , he had supposed, but only in small doses.

And then the apocalypse happened (or, rather, _Five_ had happened upon the apocalypse), and he had understood that his former thoughts on touch had been a huge fucking lie. He’d seen touch as people pulling him in for an embrace, or placing their hands on his head (which was something he absolutely and unequivocally despised, even if it were Vanya or Ben), or any kind of contact that was intentional and affectionate.

But that was so _stupid_ , because physical contact was pressing against his siblings’ legs when they were all squished in the back of a car, punching Diego when a squabble got out of hand, getting punched _back_ , hoisting Allison to her feet when she went down during a drill, bumping elbows with Luther at the dinner table because Dad couldn’t understand the concept of left-handers, jabbing Klaus in the side in an attempt to get him to _shut up_ , high-fiving Vanya when she excitedly told him she mastered a score, and tapping Ben on the shoulder when he zoned out after a particularly bloody mission. Five literally couldn’t have gone a day in that household without touching someone.

Of course, he’d only realized this after every single human being on the entire planet was dead except for him.

( _But would you call what you were doing then_ living? Dolores hummed in the back of his skull.)

It had been around month three that Five had decided he would trade his right hand for skin-on-skin contact.

It had been around year ten that Five had forgotten what skin-on-skin contact felt like.

Then the Handler had arrived, and he hadn’t been an idiot (just a little crazy, a little feral); he’d _known_ she was bad news, but he would have been even more of an idiot not to accept her proposition. There had been _nothing left_. She had extended her hand, and Five had stared at it like it was some foreign object. To him, it _had_ been.

She’d wanted to touch him.

An almost animalistic craving had leapt out of his chest and surged down his arm, causing him to latch onto the offered hand with steely strength.

Five remembered almost crying when his calloused, grimy fingers had met her smooth, firm, and, most importantly, warm ones. As welcoming and utterly nostalgic that sensation had been, Five had been immensely relieved when the brief handshake had ended. It’d been too long. Touch was still too foreign. His skin felt like it had been lit on fire.

While he’d been working for the Commission, the only living things Five had touched were things that hadn’t lived for much longer. The contact hadn’t bothered Five when he’d been fighting, and since he’d worked alone, it had been the one source of physical contact for him. He hadn’t thought much about handling touch. Or rather, he should say, _affectionate_ touch.

Until he came back in a thirteen year-old body and suddenly his younger, overprotective (when did that happen? _He’d_ always been the one protecting _them_ when they were kids, hadn’t he been?) siblings were constantly trying to touch him. It was - _they_ were - suffocating and overwhelming.

The worst was when the contact was unexpected. If someone brushed his shoulder or grabbed his arm from behind, Five’s senses came alive in a blinding rush of heat because apparently his body didn’t know it wasn’t in the apocalypse anymore and that there were, in fact, people other than him who were alive.

The actual contact might not have been so hard to stomach if his siblings’ touches weren’t all so _gentle_. It made him want to rip his skin off. It made him want to scream as he gouged his nails into his flesh. It was a horrific feeling simply because it was a wonderful feeling he’d violently craved for forty-five years.

His siblings didn’t understand. They looked hurt, almost betrayed, when he recoiled at their touch. Five wished he could explain why their fingers felt like supernovas when they made contact with his skin, why his insides felt like they were tearing their way out of his body when he was touched, why he sometimes had to blink to the bathroom to puke his guts out after one of them put a hand on his shoulder, but he couldn’t because he didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he couldn’t handle it and it was _weak_ and _pathetic_ and he was disgusted with himself. He was no stranger to torture, but even the hint of an affectionate caress was enough to send him reeling and begging for (more) it to stop.

Which was why he currently found himself at a nearly empty local diner at 2:00 pm. He needed coffee to assuage the acute pounding in his head.

He and the rest of his siblings had sat down to a late lunch earlier in the day that Allison and Klaus had prepared at the Academy. (Five had been hesitant initially to eat anything the former drug addict made, but Klaus was a surprisingly good cook when he was sober.) The atmosphere had actually been pleasant for once. Light-hearted banter and the scent of seasoned chicken had filled the space of the dining room, making it seem much more comfortable and homey than it ever had been when they were children. Five had actually felt _relaxed_ , which was so alien to him that he almost hadn’t been able to recognize the emotion for what it was.

Allison had been passing out plates, and as she had drifted behind Five’s chair, she’d absent-mindedly ruffled his hair. Five was sure it was simply a gesture out of habit, from years of doing the same to Claire, but knowing that hadn’t changed his reception of the contact. It had been a caring, _unexpected_ touch.

When her fingers had first brushed against his head, his mind had gone blank. There had been no hesitation, no forethought, just pure instinct and gut-fueled action. He’d latched onto her wrist like a vice, twisting himself out of his chair and turning to face her fluidly. His other hand had gripped the steak knife near his plate and positioned it carefully at her throat. “Don’t,” he had snarled through gritted teeth, “touch me.”

Allison’s eyes had been impossible wide, and she had raised her one free hand up slowly. Her soft, “I’m sorry, Five,” had nearly been drowned out by Luther’s sharp, “Five!”

Five had removed the knife and turned, taking stock of the horrified looks directed at him. _Remember?_ Dolores had snarkily commented. _Touching is normal. You’ve just forgotten._

With the playful ambience effectively ruined, Five had left. He’d blinked into the next room to grab the van keys, and then had driven away. Where, he hadn’t been exactly sure, but definitely a place with coffee. His skull had felt like someone (probably the Handler - it was something she would do) was slamming a jackhammer into it.

So now here he was - one of the two customers in a dinky local diner, where he’d been for the past fifteen minutes because _nobody would take his fucking order._

“Excuse me?” Five bit out irritably.

The only waiter in the place he’d seen so far, a tall, thick man in his thirties with a name tag reading “Hank” on it, squinted at Five as he made his way over to the time traveler. “Um, yeah?”

“I would like a cup of coffee,” Five practically spit. He was so tired. His head was killing him.

When the waiter made no move to respond, or actually _move_ , Five added, “Black.”

Hank looked hesitant. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait for your parents?” he said, sounding concerned.

Slowly, as though Five were addressing a toddler, the fifty-eight year-old responded, “Did I say I wanted to wait? No, I said I wanted some coffee. Now.”

The waiter blinked, seemingly taken aback at Five’s tone. He raked his eyes up and down Five critically. “Okay,” he finally said, turning away.

Being thirteen _sucked_.

 _So did the apocalypse,_ Dolores pointed out, _and you got through that fine._

Yeah, if by “fine” she meant repulsed by the idea of physical contact, then sure, he was suuuper fine.

Hank returned a few minutes later and placed a steaming mug in front of Five. “Thanks,” Five muttered into his drink. He took a long swig, then immediately made a face. Why the hell was it so hard for literally everyone to make a cup of coffee?

Whatever. As long as it made the headache go away, he wasn’t gonna complain. Out loud.

The one other customer in the diner was an older woman who was working on a sudoku book in front of her. She noticed Five peering at her, and she offered him a small wave.

Five pretended he hadn’t seen it.

 _We should talk about what happened during lunch,_ Dolores said.

“No, we really shouldn’t,” Five said under his breath.

_You have to get over this. You can’t have an episode every time someone taps your arm._

“I just need to get used to it,” Five replied, peering at the mug in between his hands. He’d already drank roughly half of it, which was apparently far too quickly, because his head was starting to spin.

Dolores scoffed. _How are you going to get used to something you never let happen?_

Five had a brilliant reply waiting on the tip of his tongue, but something was very wrong. When he reached for the cup of coffee, his hand clumsily hit the side of it, sending it skittering across the table. Five whipped his head to the side, which was a huge mistake, because the diner seemed to tilt on its axis as he did so.

He’d been drugged.

Five immediately rose out of his seat, but the spinning room caused him to falter and slam his hip into the edge of the table. Sharp pain radiated across his senses, clearing his head momentarily. He had to get out. The diner was too small of a space - it was too easy to get cornered here.

He was supposed to be done with Commission crap. He honestly didn’t know what he could have done to draw their attention to him again.

He collected his muddled thoughts and tried blinking out of the diner. He balled his hands into fists and . . . nothing.

Five cursed. He couldn’t do the calculations he needed to when his brain was like this.

Hank was suddenly beside Five. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, putting a hand on Five’s shoulder.

The contact stung like acid, and Five twisted his arm away violently. “Ge’ off me,” he slurred, trying to ignore how much his head was whirling.

The large hand returned to his shoulder, but with a tighter grip this time. By this point, Five could barely stand, let alone shake the waiter off. “Are you gonna puke?” Hank said, his voice sounding distorted and blurry to Five’s ears.

Five furiously tried to get his tongue, which felt incredibly swollen, to form words, but a tired-sounding mumble came out of his mouth. _I’ve been drugged,_ Five wanted to howl.

“Not on my floor, you won’t,” Hank said, forcibly steering Five towards the back exit of the diner.

“Is - is he okay?” Five thought he heard someone ask.

“Yeah,” Hank responded as he threw the back door open. “He’s just sick.”

Five stumbled through the door and into an alley, the waiter hot on his heels. “M’not sick,” Five protested.

As the door swung closed, Hank twisted Five around and slammed his back against the rough bricks.

“What -” Five started to say, but Hank’s hand clamped tightly over his mouth, smashing his head into the wall.

“No talking,” the waiter whispered, then leaned his head down and began kissing Five’s neck.

 _What the hell!_ Five’s mind shrieked, but the only audible noise he made was a muffled groan into Hanks’ hand.

“Shh,” Hank murmured against Five’s throat. “We’re alone now.”

If his siblings’ touches were supernovas, these touches were black holes. This man was pulling, taking something out of Five. Every contact from Hank ripped apart his synapses. Five’s heart was pounding fast enough to make the breaths through his nostrils come in and out in wheezing little gasps. This was too much, too close, too _wrong_. His entire body felt like it was short circuiting.

Five bucked wildly underneath the man’s grip, but his muddled efforts did nothing to dissuade Hank.

“I knew you were a feisty one,” Hank said.

Five tried screaming and was absolutely appalled by how weak of a whimper came out. He was fifty-eight, for Pete’s sake. He was an assassin, and he was good at it. He didn’t _whimper_.

“You even dressed up for me,” Hank whispered, toying with the hem of Five’s shirt.

Five desperately kicked one leg up and hit Hank squarely in between the legs. The waiter careened backward, releasing his hold on Five as he bent double, a sharp rasp forcing its way out of his mouth.

Five pushed himself off the wall and unsteadily reached for the door handle. Now that he knew the threat was not the Commission, the inside of the diner was a much safer place to be. There had been other people, _witnesses_ , in there.

The door was locked.

Of _course_ it was fucking locked.

A hand seized his shoulder and spun him around. The next contact was genuinely welcome and familiar to Five - a solid right hook to Five’s face. Blinding pain emanated from his nose as his head snapped back. Sticky liquid began sliding down his chin. _This_ was touch Five knew. _This_ he could handle.

“None of that,” the man hissed. He shoved Five back against the wall. “You all but said your parents aren’t here, so just let me have my fun, yeah?” Then he smashed his lips against Five’s.

Five couldn’t tell if his nerves were on fire or if they’d turned cold enough to burn, but everything in him hurt.

He feebly attempted to push the man back. The drug still coursing through his system, along with the fact that Hank’s hand was pinning one of his arms to the bricks, made sure his weakened action caused no discernible effect. Hank’s other hand was cupped around Five’s hip, using it to leverage Five’s body farther against the wall.

 _Stop_ , something Five hadn’t seen for forty-five years wailed inside of him.

Then the back door to the diner flew open.

Five had time for one thought before Hank hastily retreated a step back: _Diego does not look happy._

Which, in hindsight, was an understatement. After the split second of horror faded from his face, Diego looked murderous.

“Look, man, I was just -” was all the waiter managed to say before Diego slugged him. _Act first, talk never_ was Diego’s motto, and Five had never been so on board for that creed until now.

Diego didn’t even spare Five a glance as he continued to pound Hank into the pavement, but Five wasn’t offended, nor did he mind. Diego had always been the impulsive one of the siblings. He also despised encountering problems his combat skills could not solve. Five? Five probably looked like a drugged trainwreck right now. You can’t punch a poison out of someone’s system. Hank? Hank was a threat that could be taken care of with Diego’s fists. So no, Five wasn’t insulted. More importantly, it kept Diego away from Five, which was exactly what he wanted. He was fuzzy from the drug and maybe something akin to terror (not that he would ever admit it), and he’d be damned if any of his siblings saw him like this. He had to collect himself before Diego finished. Who cared if his heart was beating so hard he was afraid it would burst? Who cared if his hands wouldn’t stop shaking? He was an adult. He could deal with this on his own.

Except with nothing holding him up, he was realizing how hard it was to stand. He tipped forward, unable to do anything to prevent the ground from rising to meet his face.

An arm snaked out and snagged his chest, stopping his fall.

Five reeled back, a snarl forming on his lips.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Ben’s face loomed in front of him. “It’s me, Ben. You’re gonna be okay. We’re here now.” The words were an attempt to be reassuring, Five knew, but Ben’s voice was tight and strained.

 _Shit_ , okay, so he had to pull himself together a little sooner. Easy enough.

He straightened up, wobbling slightly. He should be the last one making his siblings worry. He was almost twice their age.

(But sometimes he wondered if his body was the only thing that had turned thirteen or if something else had, too, something quiet but always present that lurked in the back of his mind.)

The _point_ was that he had traveled back in time to save them, to protect them, and now Ben was staring at him like he was a frail or broken child.

“I don’t need you,” Five said, but his slurred tone took most of the sting out of the words.

Ben just looked at him with something way too close to sympathy for his liking. “Five,” Ben said. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“You’re lucky you’re so pretty,” Hank said, dragging Five’s attention back to him. He was on his back, one eye already beginning to swell shut, blood coating the lower half of his face. Diego stood over him, his chest heaving and his fists clenched. “Or else it wouldn’t have been worth it.” Hank let out a sigh and tipped his head back onto the pavement. “If only I’d had time for more.”

Five was determined not to let his expression change. Hank knew he had lost; he was just trying to goad Five into a reaction. Five couldn’t show that this man had gotten under his skin (because he hadn’t).

Five leaned over and threw up.

“Diego,” Ben said, his voice hard. His eyes never left Five. “Shut him up.”

“With pleasure,” came Diego’s growled reply. A series of thumping noises followed his words, and then Hank’s body went limp.

Ben was watching Five with concern, but he was careful not to touch the former Commissions agent. “I think we need to get him to a hospital,” Ben said, directing his words at Diego.

“No,” Five said immediately, glaring at his brother. “No hospital.” There would be too many questions that would be too hard to answer, and no one would treat him like anything other than a child. “I was just drugged,” Five said, or at least tried to. He didn’t know how much of that actually got out, but Ben appeared to get the gist of it.

Ben still didn’t look convinced. “You’re bleeding.”

Oh, yeah. He’d forgotten about the throbbing in his nose. “S’not broken.” He knew what a broken nose felt like, and this wasn’t it.

“Kid’s right,” Diego said, appearing at Ben’s shoulder. “Home will be fine. You guys head back in Five’s van. I’ll stay behind to talk to the police.” His sentences were short, his voice curt, as though he were trying to restrain himself.

Five snapped his head up to ask Diego if a kid knew how to incapacitate a 6’9” man with an eraser, but the quick movement caused the world to tilt upsettingly.

“Easy there, kiddo,” Ben said.

Come on, Ben, too? Five would put them both in their place if not for the throbbing in his skull and the dark dots swimming in front of his eyes. He was going to pass out soon.

Using a tremendous amount of effort, Five lifted his gaze to Ben. “Don’t tell the others,” he said in a surprisingly clear voice.

Ben made a face, and Diego looked ready to argue, so Five forced out a word he wasn’t sure he’d ever used before: “Please.”

Then his consciousness left him.


	2. Try Not to Feel the Cold

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### Try Not to Feel the Cold

When Five awoke, he quickly sat up and took stock of his surroundings. Five had never been the type of person to wait ages for his body to shake off slumber. When he was awake, he was instantly alert.

A cursory look around the room informed him that he was in his bedroom at the Academy. According to the clock on the wall, it was 1:24 am. Asleep in a chair pulled up next to the bed was Diego.

Five rolled his eyes. Of course Diego took it upon himself to be the watchful, protective brother. Too bad Five didn’t _need_ protecting.

Bits and pieces of today’s encounter surfaced to the forefront of his mind. He scowled, ignoring the leftover ache in his nose and skull and the nauseating feeling that crawled its way up his throat. What had happened had been bad enough, but the fact that two of his siblings had been there to _witness_ it made it so much worse.

He needed a drink.

He blinked from his bed to the stairwell. There was no need to wake Diego. He’d probably try to awkwardly bring up the incident, which wouldn’t go well at all because Five and Diego barely knew how to deal with emotions, let alone _talk_ about them.

If Five could make it to the minibar without encountering anyone, he would consider his day made.

Of course, fate, or whatever people wanted to call the bullshit that made time move forward, had other plans.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, party animal,” Klaus greeted from the bottom of the stairs. Then the medium frowned. “Well, mostly living.”

Five squinted at Klaus as he made his way down the stairs. “What did you just call me?”

“‘Party animal,’” Kalus repeated slowly, enunciating each syllable. “I heard you were _hammered_ when Ben and Diego found you. You still weren’t awake when Ben brought you home. You drink like you’re fifty, my fun-sized little brother, but when’s the last time you looked in a mirror?” He sighed whimsically, although Five failed to see anything whimsical about the conversation. “It upset Allison, since she’s the one who forced us all to split up and look for you.”

Five wasn’t exactly pleased with Ben and Diego’s cover story, but he was grateful they had listened to him. “Oh, yeah.”

Klaus blinked. “Whoa, dude,” Klaus said, reaching one hand towards Five as the time traveler drew closer, “what’s on your neck?”

Five backhanded Klaus’ outstretched fingers so hard the medium flinched, withdrawing his arm quickly.

Five hoped his breathing wasn’t as loud as it sounded to his own ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Five responded honestly, trying to rein in his raging heartbeat. _It’s not him it’s just Klaus it’s Klaus your brother it’s not him._

Klaus made sure to keep his hands by his sides when he next spoke. “You have a bunch of rings on your -” he stopped, his eyes growing wide as what looked like recognition dawned on his face. “Are those what I think they are?” His tone was a terrible blend of curiosity and confusion.

Rather than answer, Five blinked to the nearest bathroom and locked the door, knowing and dreading what he would see when he looked in the mirror.

The multiple hickeys on his throat seemed to mock him. _You can’t forget, we won’t let you,_ they chittered.

Five studied his reflection for all of ten seconds before he staggered to the toilet and threw up. _Shit_ , he thought wearily, closing his eyes, _I’ve got to stop doing that._

Someone started banging on the bathroom door. “Five,” Klaus said, concern lacing his tone. “Are you okay?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Five said through gritted teeth.

“What’s going on?” Five heard Ben’s muffled voice through the door.

“Ben, what exactly happened today?” Klaus said. He sounded worried, which was annoying as hell. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Because Five has locked himself in the bathroom and insists that he’s _fine_.”

Ben was, hands down, the worst liar of the whole family.

“Uh, well, not - I mean, nothing -” Ben hedged.

“Ben, _shut up_ ,” Five warned. Under any other circumstances, he would have blinked outside and dragged Ben away by the ear, but his stomach was still unsettled and he was afraid of upchucking in front of his two brothers, which would prove the exact opposite point Five was trying to make: that he was okay.

Klaus’s voice was sharper than Five had ever heard it. “Ben, our brother who looks like he’s _thirteen_ has a load of hickeys on his neck. If I _didn’t_ know his top choice for potential future partner doesn’t have teeth or, you know, the ability to _move_ , I might be slightly less concerned, but I _do_ know, so what. Exactly. Happened?”

Five could practically _hear_ Ben squirming. “Five told me not to tell anyone,” he muttered.

Five rolled his eyes. Could Ben try any harder to sound like a petulant kid scuffing his shoe in the dirt? “Klaus,” Five growled, “leave it alone.”

“Dude,” Klaus said, ignoring Five completely, “I brought you back from the dead. You _owe_ me.”

Ben scoffed. “You didn’t. You just made me corporeal for a limited amount of time. _Five_ technically brought me back from the dead.”

Klaus’s tone turned cajoling. “Who took you to see _Avengers_ that one time?” When there was no response, Klaus said in a more serious voice, “I think we can both safely say Five’s communication is somewhat lacking, seeing as he didn’t tell us about the apocalypse until _the day before it happened._ I don’t think you should be taking his advice on what to tell us.”

“Five was attacked at a diner,” Ben blurted out. “We went in, and an old lady said she was worried about a boy who’d just been taken to the back -” Ben sounded like he choked on something, but he kept going, “- and Five was bleeding, and there was an older guy, and he, he -”

Okay, so, the exact opposite of what Five had wanted to happen had happened, which meant the only option he had left was damage control. He braced himself, then blinked to Klaus and Ben’s sides, interrupting Ben’s almost frantic speech. He took it as a good sign when he didn’t throw up. 

Ben looked miserable; Klaus, sickened. “It was nothing,” Five said. He hadn’t realized how upset Ben had been about this whole situation. “I’m okay.”

They stared at him, pity leaking from every pore in their bodies, and suddenly Five couldn’t stand to be there anymore. When did everyone forget that he was an adult - their senior, in fact?

“Oh, Five,” Klaus whispered, his eyes shining.

No, no, no.

He blinked back to his room and instantly regretted it.

“Five?”

He’d forgotten about Diego.

“Where’d you go, man? I woke up and you weren’t there. I didn’t know if -”

“If _what_?” Five snapped, sick to death of everyone in this household. “If I’d walked out of here of my own willpower like a _regular fucking_ adult?”

Diego held up his hands. “Look, I’m sorry. I was just nervous after . . . after today,” he finished lamely.

Five bared his teeth at him. “Yeah, well, I’m here now, so congratulations, you can leave.”

Diego shifted his feet uncertainly. He looked like he wanted to say something.

Five wasn’t going to give him the chance. He prepared to blink downstairs and -

“Were you -” Diego said, unable to look at Five directly. “Did he, you know. . . .”

A surge of nausea bubbled up inside of Five as he realized what Diego was clumsily alluding to. “ _No_ ,” Five hissed. “Of course not. I would have _never_ let that happen.”

It was obvious Diego was trying to choose his words carefully. He’d never been much of a wordsmith. “I didn’t think you were _letting_ any of that happen to you.”

Five’s face burned. He knew Diego was right, but it didn’t make the reality any easier to accept: that if Hank had tried, Five wouldn’t have been able to stop him. “He _didn’t_ ,” Five said, staring straight at Diego.

Diego seemed to believe him, because the vigilante let out a slow sigh of relief. “Well, you know,” Diego said awkwardly, “that’s good.”

Five would literally rather be strangled to death than let this conversation continue any longer. “Great,” he said flatly. “Can you leave now?”

Diego acquiesced surprisingly quickly, allowing Five to flop onto his bed with a groan. Everyone was making this thing into something it wasn’t. He was _fine_. He wasn’t a kid, no matter how hard they tried to treat him like one.

Five closed his eyes. Maybe sleep would dull the memories, mellow out the ache deep in his bones.

It didn’t.

* * *

His dream was a whirlwind of bright color and sound pressing in around him. People tried talking to him, but their voices were lost in the cacophony of intensity. When they realized their words were not reaching him, they stretched out their hands. Fingers pulled at his clothing, his hair, his skin. He tried shaking them off, but his movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. He opened his mouth to yell, and the hands were over his mouth, covering his eyes and ears. Everything went dark and silent.

Five bolted up from his bed, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat. A wild glance at the clock told him it was 8:30 in the morning.

He forced his breathing to slow until he was taking in air at regular, non-panicky intervals. _They will never leave you alone if they see you like this,_ Dolores reminded him.

Right, right. The good news was that only half of his siblings knew what had happened. Those three might try to hover for a couple of days, but once they saw how put-together and unaffected he was, they’d back off and things could go back to the way they were: with him being the oldest, smartest, and altogether best member of the family.

Five was about to head downstairs, but he hesitated before leaving the room. His neck. He had to do something about his neck.

He blinked to Klaus’s room, relieved but surprised to find it empty. Klaus was rarely up before noon, and when he was, it was because he hadn’t gone to bed the night before. Shrugging off his brother’s absence, Five pulled open the closet door and began rummaging through Klaus’s clothes. Klaus’s shirts were always several sizes too small for the medium, so chances were that one of his tops would fit Five’s scrawny body.

When Five found what he was looking for, he took off his shirt and pulled the new one over his body. It was still slightly baggy, but the turtleneck did exactly what Five needed it to do - keep his neck out of sight.

Satisfied with his new get-up, he blinked to the kitchen.

And froze when a loud conversation halted and six pairs of eyes swiveled to him guiltily.

Never mind. It appeared all of his siblings now knew.

“Heya, Five,” Klaus chirped, trying to dispel the uncomfortable silence that had overtaken the room.

“I told you both not to tell anyone else,” Five said slowly, looking at Diego and Ben.

Ben shrugged, not looking too regretful. “Klaus is the one who squealed.” 

Klaus offered Five a tiny wave.

Five let out of a huff of air and meandered over to the coffee machine, resigned to the events that would play out.

“So,” Luther said as Five began brewing himself a cup, “are we gonna talk about this?”

“There’s nothing _to_ talk about,” Five responded, trying to keep his tone mild. Now that they all knew, this conversation was bound to happen eventually, so he might as well get it over with. The sooner they saw there was nothing to make a fuss about, the better.

“Five,” Vanya said, stepping forward. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes sad. “You shouldn’t be brushing this off.”

“Why not?” came Five’s instant reply. There wasn’t much heat in his tone, though. It had always been hard for him to get mad at Vanya. “I was attacked, like I have been a _ton_ of times in my life. How is this any different?”

“What’s diff-” This time it was Allison, who seemed incredulous. “Five, you were sexually assaulted. Do you understand that?”

That term made his stomach roll for some reason, but he kept his face neutral. “Nothing sexual _happened,_ ” Five said, loathing how defensive he sounded. “It was - he didn’t get that far.” Fuck, this is was so embarrassing to discuss in front of his family.

Ben’s voice was the next to cut in. “Assault is assault. It doesn’t matter how far he got - you were _violated._ ”

All right, that word was so much worse than “sexual assault.” Five had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep the wave of nausea at bay.

“It’s horrifying and awful on its own,” Allison said. “But you despise physical contact. I - I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been.”

No, this was all wrong. They were all looking at him like he was a kid who’d been abused, not an adult who’d been attacked. They were _extremely_ different scenarios. “No,” Five said, mouth dry, “it wasn’t, it was noth-”

“ _Dammit,_ Five,” Diego said, slamming his hand down on the table and causing Vanya to flinch. “Why can’t you admit something happened?”

Five’s fingers clenched into fists. Anger was easy. Anger wasn’t confusing. Five knew exactly how to handle anger, so when it arrived he clutched it like a drowning man just thrown a life preserver. “Because nothing _did,_ ” he snarled. “I’m _fine._ ”

Ben cocked his head to the side, realization flashing in those thoughtful eyes of his. “It’s not that you can’t admit it happened,” he said quietly, almost as though he were thinking out loud. “It’s that if you do, you have to accept our help.” He frowned. “Why won’t you let us help you, Five?”

Ben’s words were the equivalent of him prying Five’s mouth open and pouring battery acid down Five’s tongue. “I don’t _need_ your help,” Five spat, ignoring the sudden ache in his chest.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is,” Five said, “it’s just not the one you want to hear.”

“Okay,” Ben said, folding his arms over his chest. “So you’re saying when you _do_ need our help, you’ll accept it?”

Five’s headache had returned with a vengeance. He clutched one side of his head as he turned to leave the room. “I will _never_ need your help,” he said.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Luther said in his classic, “Dad made me Number One so I’m in charge,” tone of voice.

“Out,” Five said. He hadn’t finished making his coffee, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made to avoid vexing situations. Such was life.

“Whoa, hey,” Diego said, holding up a hand. Something Five couldn’t quite place swam in the vigilante’s eyes. “After what just happened?”

“Yeah, at least let one of us go with you,” Vanya pleaded.

Five wondered if they could hear him grinding his teeth together. “I understand everyone’s concerns, really,” Five forced himself to say, “but I’m going to be fine. Do you know why? Because I’ve _been_ fine, despite what you guys seem to think.”

“I don’t like the thought of you going alone,” Allison said. “Especially not so soon . . . afterward.”

“Not being alone would defeat the express purpose of me leaving,” Five seethed. This was so inane. They couldn’t stop him even if they tried, so what was the point of this conversation, anyway?

Diego looked incensed. “You can’t be serious. There’s no _way_ I’m letting you go out by yourself.”

Diego might as well have raked a hand across Five’s face for all the affect his words had. Five reared back, his lips curling back in a sneer, vitriol coating his teeth. “ _Let_ me?” he said, dangerously quiet. “You don’t _let_ me do anything.” There was more, a whole slew of words he wanted to unleash, but Klaus, who’d been unusually silent for the majority of this talk, interrupted him.

“Let him go,” Klaus said. When everyone in the room (including Five) looked at him dubiously, he shrugged his shoulders. “Our sweet little brother needs his space,” he said in that sing-songy sigh of his. “Besides, he’s not dumb enough to fall for the same trick twice, right?” He glanced at Five rather slyly as he said this, as though he knew the comment would rankle the time traveler. 

It definitely did, but Five appreciated the unexpected support. Klaus understood better than anybody his need to be alone - the poor guy was literally surrounded by people (normally dead) at all times. Of all of Five’s siblings, Klaus would be the first to empathize with this need.

“I guess . . .” Allison said uncertainly. Vanya still looked incredibly worried, and Diego didn’t appear to have changed his stance at all.

Luther looked at Five sternly. “Just don’t be out too long, okay?”

“Just because you said that, I’m not coming home until tomorrow.” He couldn’t believe they had regressed him to this childish retort. He hated that a part of him meant it. He hated that a part of him didn’t mean it.

“Five,” Vanya said softly. “Please.”

Five scowled. She knew he would cave for her faster than anyone. “Fine.”

Then he blinked outside. It was a little chilly, the wind fairly brisk, but it wasn’t cold enough for it to be worth returning inside for a coat. He just wanted to go on a walk without anyone bothering him.

He didn’t have many hobbies. There had never been time for any in his life until recently. He wasn’t sure if taking walks counted as a hobby, but he certainly enjoyed this past time. It was genuinely pleasant to be able to stroll down a sidewalk without having to shield his face from the persistent ash and smoke that invaded his airway and left a permanent coat on his lungs. The sun’s rays actually lit up bright green blades of grass instead of being swallowed by the dusty fog. Birds twittered at one another as they swooped from branches, keeping up a steady thrum of ambience that helped break Five from the occasional apocalypse flashback.

It wasn’t like he never heard or saw these things while he was the Commission, but leisurely walks weren’t exactly on the agenda for an assassin. He’d never been able to simply stop and appreciate the pure beauty of life thriving all around him. Ambling mindlessly (but always hyper-aware of the milling of people around him - old habits die hard) through scenic areas like parks had become one of his favorite activities.

He was less than thrilled when his wandering feet ended up at the very same alleyway of the diner where he’d been attacked yesterday. 

He glowered. The whole point of this walk was to avoid his siblings’ concerns, yet here he was. Back at the location of the . . . incident.

He stared at the cracked bricks of the wall. He imagined them scraping, digging into his back as large, sweaty hands kept him still. He imagined the coppery tang of blood and bile on his tongue as unwanted weight pressed down on his throat. 

He imagined sitting in the middle of debris and smoke and embers and crying for hours because he missed the feeling of a warm touch.

 _Don’t throw up,_ Five commanded himself. 

He bent his head forward and technically complied with his own wish, since he didn’t have anything left in his stomach to actually puke. He just retched instead.

Salt stung the back of his eyes, and his headache spiked to the base of his skull. He pressed the palm of his hand to his temple, a quiet hiss sliding past his teeth. Why was he doing this to himself? What was he trying to prove? That he could handle what had happened? If so, why hadn’t he brought his siblings with him, to show them that he could? It would have been a great way to get them to stop hovering. _Look, scene of the crime and I’m completely unfazed. Except for a little bit of vomit. Ignore that._

 _You didn’t bring them because you need to prove it to yourself, first,_ Dolores said, her tone gentler than Five was used to.

Five balked. “Not true,” he muttered out loud. He already knew how he felt about it all. And he _also_ knew there was no need to dwell on it any longer. He was fine, Fine, Five. He was Five and he was Fine.

He almost giggled at that thought, which was even more of a tell than the puking. Maybe he wasn’t quite as all right as he made himself out to be. 

(Not that anyone else needed to know that.)

He supposed after that fun realization, he should head back to the house. The hammering behind his eyes was relentless and gave no indication of letting up soon, and the flashbacks he’d just experienced had left an aftertaste of ash in his mouth. He needed . . . well, to be perfectly honest, he wasn’t sure what he needed, but coffee was always a nice go-to. Or sleep. His mind knew he had slept last night, but his body seemed to have no memory of it. He was still so tired. Stretched.

Normally, Five tried not to let his thoughts venture to this corner of his brain, but something between the migraine and the empty stomach and the sight of those stupid bricks was blocking his regular filter.

He just wanted to rest, to turn his brain off for more than five seconds. It should have been easy to relax after they successfully averted the apocalypse, but for whatever reason, it was hard to even breathe nowadays. Five tried to pretend it didn’t take a tremendous amount of effort to be normal in a place where normal didn’t involve either endless murder or endless silence. He had been raised in destruction and fire and the only life that could have prepared him for had been handed to him on an apocalyptic platter. He was a killer who didn’t know how to interact with people, because for most of his life, there had _been_ no people, and when there had been, he’d been sent to murder them. His hands were forever stained with blood (some of it innocent, some of it not, and what does _innocent_ even mean, anyway?) and pain and screams and soot and how could he even pretend that this new, serene life was anywhere close to normal? Normal was not safe, normal was not calm; normal was constant ache, constant hunger, constant threat.

Normal was _dying_.

Klaus was wrong. It wasn’t that Five was addicted to the apocalypse - it was that the apocalypse was all he had ever known. What do you do when the one thing you’ve built your entire life around - _decades_ \- is no longer there?

He didn’t know how to be okay anymore. He wasn’t fine because he hadn’t been fine since he’d stumbled upon the apocalypse when he was thirteen years old.

He blinked. He was cold, he suddenly realized. And soaking wet.

He looked up and immediately had to close his eyes against the downpour of water. It was raining hard, and had been for a while, based on the state of his clothes. He hadn’t even noticed. How long had he been standing there, gawking at a brick wall?

His gaze fell downward, and he could only stare dumbly at his blood-encrusted fingernails. It took him far too long to notice the long, shallow scratches in his forearms. At some point during his break from reality, he’d rolled up the sleeves of Klaus’s turtleneck and began clawing at his skin. Each drop of water on his arms awoke a vicious sting that he distantly feared would never abate.

The chill had settled deep inside his bones while he hadn’t been paying attention, and his headache had worsened. He wanted to curl into a ball and sleep, but it was far too frigid. He had to get back to the house. _Then_ , he thought, _I get to pass out._

He just needed to sleep this off. Then the migraine would disappear, the emotional high would lessen, and the shivering would stop.

Dolores laughed. _Sleep can’t mend a broken mind._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People. I think I listened to "All the King's Horses" for 5 straight hours today. (Most of it while writing this lol.) It's so sad, but hopeful at the same time. I freaking adore this song.


	3. Caught in the Thought of That Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING:
> 
> There is a brief mention of suicidal thoughts in this chapter, and extremely briefly in the next one, as well. Please please please if you are considering suicide and/or have suicidal thoughts, call 1-800-273-8255. Suicide is never the answer.
> 
> Also, thank you so so much to everyone who's commented. It makes me so happy to know that people are enjoying this story! (And thanks to everyone who's even bothering to read my story, as well lol.)

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### Caught in the Thought of That Time

Klaus was not a worrier. No, sirree. What happened happened and if you didn’t learn to roll with the punches then you were going to get beaten to the ground.

Except for, you know, sometimes. Like when he’d heard Ben’s scream years ago (which haunted him more than the actual ghosts did) and had been unable to move for several seconds. Like when it was announced that Dave and he would be positioned at the front line and something oily had twisted in his gut.

Like when his smallest brother who’d just been assaulted went on a walk three hours ago and hadn’t come back yet.

Yeah, fine, okay, he had definitely supported Five’s decision initially, and he may or may not have been the reason the rest of his siblings had relented, but geez, three hours was a long time. Especially in a torrential downpour like this one.

A clap of rumbling thunder accentuated his thoughts, making him jump slightly. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, keeping one eye on the door as some sitcom he couldn’t remember the name of played on the screen in front of him.

At least he wasn’t the only one visibly concerned about the absence of their missing brother, he thought as he slid a glance toward Diego, who was pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, casting an angry glare towards the door every few seconds. Which wasn’t exactly fair - he knew the others would be just as upset, but they were all off doing various adult things like shopping and giving violin lessons and attending classes. The latter was actually Ben - he had decided to enroll in college after they’d come back from the past and prevented the apocalypse. Something warm and fuzzy enveloped Klaus whenever he thought of Ben being able to do regular, young adult activities.

Diego’s job hours were whenever he wanted them to be, and Klaus’s occupation was currently non-existent, so they were the only ones left in the large house.

“I’m gonna give him ten more minutes,” Diego said, his voice abrupt over the quiet murmuring of the TV.

It was interesting, because when Five had first stormed out of the house yesterday, Diego had been the one to adamantly oppose going after him. Diego had stated that the kid needed to cool off, and then he’d come back on his own time. Allison’s pleading eyes, however, had eventually broken him, and he had reluctantly agreed to search some of Five’s favorite spots in order to find the time traveler.

And now Diego was snarling at the end of his leash, the first to object to Five leaving by himself and the last to stop worrying after he’d absconded. Whatever Diego had seen when he’d found Five had boosted his protectiveness levels by roughly a million percent.

Klaus shuddered. He was a curious individual by nature, but if he never knew the exact details of what sight had greeted Ben and Diego, it was no skin off his back.

Whenever he thought about it, though (“ _there was an older guy”_ ), raw, hot anger simmered in his rib cage. How _dare_ someone lay a hand on Five? The kid had been through so much already. _It’s not fair,_ he wanted to shriek at the sky. Five had, for all intents and purposes, been given a second chance to grow up. Okay, not really, since his mind was still fifty-whatever years old, but regardless, no one deserved to be attacked like that. Revulsion filled him every time he remembered yesterday, every time he saw Five’s face become carefully blank when it was clear he was remembering something but trying so hard not to show it.

The sound of the front door’s handle turning broke Klaus from his thoughts. Immediately Diego ceased moving, all of his frenetic energy now directed at the door. Klaus remained seated, but his head darted towards the foyer.

The noise of the pattering rain grew louder as the door opened. A flushed, drenched Five stood in the doorway, Klaus’s sopping turtleneck hanging off his lithe frame and highlighting just how skinny he was.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Klaus said, attempting to keep the overwhelming relief out of his voice.

Five scowled at Klaus, flipping the medium the bird as he crossed the threshold and swung the door shut behind him.

“How was your walk?” Diego said, his tone almost accusatory.

“It was fine,” Five said shortly, then blinked upstairs before any more could be said.

Diego muttered something under his breath, then sighed. “At least he’s okay,” he said. He jerked his head towards the door. “I’m gonna head out. You good here?” He cast a meaningful glance upstairs as he said that.

Klaus waved him away with one hand. “Yes, yes, we’ll be perfectly fine.”

Diego looked only slightly unconvinced, which was a win in Klaus’s book. The vigilante headed toward the door, and Klaus threw him a jaunty wave. Diego, quite rudely, did not return it.

Klaus groaned as the door closed behind Diego. As happy as he was that Five was back and not dead, he was bored. Worrying about his brother had required more than half of his attention, and now he had nowhere to direct that attention.

“Fiiiiive,” Klaus whined as he trekked up the stairs. “You wanna do something?”

“No,” came Five’s curt reply from behind his closed door. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

Was it odd that Five was trying to sleep at noon? Perhaps, but Klaus wouldn’t be surprised if the kid had caught a cold from being in the rain for so long.

Sighing loudly, so that Five could hear it, Klaus slowly made his way toward his own room. Now that he thought about it, maybe a fifteen minute nap wouldn’t be so bad. He was pretty sleepy himself. And, now that he had more control over his powers (one of the few perks of being sober), sleeping without the screams of the dead ringing in his ears was actually possible. _Yeah,_ he thought. _Fifteen minutes ought to do it._ He threw himself onto his bed with a contented moan and was asleep almost immediately.

* * *

An hour later, Klaus awoke groggily. An ugly taste resided in his mouth and his limbs felt sore. He wanted to fall back into the deep recesses of slumber, but a nagging voice in his head told him he would feel worse if he did that.

 _Fine_ , he thought grumpily. _I’ll go make myself lunch._

He clambered out of bed like it was the hardest thing in the world (which, not to sound dramatic, it might have been), then yawned and stretched his arms as high as they could go, enjoying the slight tingling of his fingers as he did so. As he swung his hands back down to his sides, his elbow knocked into a ceramic mug he’d left on his desk the night before.

Klaus could only wince in preparation for the loud tinkling noise as it shattered on the floor. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” Klaus said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Hey, here’s an idea, Klaus - leave the cup in the kitchen next time.”

He tiptoed around the sharp pieces on the ground to get to his door. Not only did he have to clean up the mess, but he’d probably woken up Five from his nap, which meant that Klaus would very shortly be dealing with a cranky boy who knew 151 different ways to kill him (Five had listed twenty-two before Klaus had politely demanded he stop).

He stepped into the hallway, softly pulling the door shut behind him, as though that muted action would make up for the obnoxious din he’d just created. He turned to head toward the stairs, only to be greeted by the sight of a pajama-clad Five standing at the top of the stairwell.

The kid’s face was aimed at the living room below them, so Klaus couldn’t make out the expression on his face, but the medium was certain it was not a pleasant one. He swallowed thickly. _Maybe he’ll kill me with Method #14,_ Klaus thought hopefully. _A quick stab to my jugular with a pen._ “Uh, hi, Five,” Klaus said, trying to sound chipper.

Five turned his head to face Klaus. Strangely enough, it wasn’t rage in Five’s eyes, but feral panic. “Klaus?” Five said, his voice hoarse.

Before Klaus could respond, the second weirdest thing he would ever see in his life happened: a broad, authentic grin stretched Five’s mouth. “Klaus!” the time traveler said, sounding as though the largest weight in the universe had been lifted off his shoulders.

Five _never_ smiled. Not like this, anyway. He smirked, for sure, and was fond of aiming condescending, sarcastic sneers at any one of his siblings for any number of reasons, but he never actually grinned. He might have smiled once or twice when they were kids, but, as far as Klaus knew, never since then.

So Klaus was already freaked out when the _first_ weirdest thing Klaus would ever see happened: Five’s face suddenly crumpled, a ghastly sadness replacing the genuine joy in his eyes, and he sat heavily at the top of the stairs and began bawling.

To say Klaus was confused would have been the biggest understatement of his life. “Baffled” was closer to the mark, but that word didn’t fully encapsulate the taut, sickening worry in his gut. 

“Five . . . ?” Klaus said hesitantly, shuffling a few steps forward.

“Please,” Five sobbed into his hands, tears (Klaus had never seen Five cry - he didn’t even know Five _could_. Even when they were kids, he’d never spotted so much as a single tear from Five) smeared onto his ruddy cheeks, “no more.”

Even though Klaus was the only other person in the house, the words didn’t feel directed at him. “Hey, hey, buddy,” Klaus said, trying to smother the perturbed panic erupting in his own chest. “What’s going on?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Five wailed, and the note of absolute devastation in his young voice made Klaus’s heart clench. “ _I want to die._ ”

The phrase was dramatic, but there was a terrible earnestness in Five’s voice that shook Klaus to the core.

“Whoa,” Klaus said sharply, his tone edged with fear. He faltered for something to say in this completely bizarre situation. “Five, let’s - let’s talk about this.” By now, he’d reached Five’s side. He crouched down, being extremely careful not to touch his brother.

Five shook his head miserably and, though Klaus hadn’t thought it possible, started crying harder. “It’ll make it worse,” he said. “Go away.”

“It’ll make _what_ worse?” Klaus asked, the tense ball in his gut throbbing in time with his heartbeat.

Five raised his red-rimmed eyes to meet Klaus’s. “When I wake up,” he hiccuped through his sobs. “Talking to you will make it worse.”

Extremely lost, but trying to come off as understanding, Klaus opened his mouth, his mind frantically searching for something to say. Five’s next words, however, cut the breath from his lungs.

“I like it better when you’re all dead,” Five said tonelessly. The crying had subsided a bit by now, but his voice was still thick. When Klaus snapped his head toward Five, he saw the time traveler’s unfocused gaze directed toward the opposite wall. Five’s face twisted into a grimace. “You all hate me, and you say I deserve this, but at least when you’re dead, waking up doesn’t hurt as bad.” He tilted his head toward Klaus. “You know what I mean?”

And Klaus, although still miles behind the conversation, was surprised to find he knew _exactly_ what Five meant. When Klaus dreamed about a pale, bleeding Dave hurtling insults and blame at him, it hurt, _fuck_ did it hurt, and he awoke in a cold sweat, his whole body aching aching aching from guilt, but it didn’t make his heart scream in suffering, suffocating silence for hours in the dark, his chest ripping itself in two again and again, which is what happened when he dreamed about a smiling, caring, _alive_ Dave holding him tightly and whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

It was the dreams where he forgot what he’d lost that burned cut bled him dry.

“Yeah,” Klaus said in a gravelly whisper, settling into a sitting position beside Five. “I do know.”

Five studied him seriously for a second before returning his attention to the wall. “I didn’t mean it, you know,” he said. His eyes flicked almost guiltily toward Klaus. “About wanting to die.”

 _Liar_ , Klaus thought.

Five scrunched up his brow, which would have been absolutely adorable in any other circumstance. “Well, maybe I did. But I wouldn’t ever, you know. . . .” He gestured helplessly with his hands.

“Kill yourself?” Klaus said, his words barely a breath.

Five nodded. Then his hands clenched. “I will _never_ ,” he said vehemently. He turned fierce, wet eyes to Klaus. “I won’t, because I have to save you. I’ll save you all.”

Gears were slowly clicking into place in Klaus’s brain. “Save us from what, Five?” he asked carefully.

Five looked at him like he was an idiot, which was actually a welcome sight. This was closer to the Five Klaus knew and farther from the beaten, wailing boy he’d just seen. “What do you think, moron?”

Aaaand there he was.

“I already know this is a dream,” Five continued. “So you, being a figment of my imagination, should know exactly what I’m talking about.”

So Five thought he was dreaming. That explained the sobbing (sort of), but it didn’t quite answer all of Klaus’s questions. “Five, hon,” Klaus said gently, “you’re not dreaming.”

Five slammed his fist into the banister so hard Klaus was afraid he broke something in either his hand or the railing. “Don’t _say_ that,” he said, his eyes brimming with tears again. “You guys always fucking say that. Just _stop_.” His breathing hitched. “It’s bad enough as it is - don’t make it worse for me.”

Then the last cog rattled into place in Klaus’s head. “Five, how old are you?”

Five blinked, the unanticipated question keeping the rest of his tears at bay. “What?”

“Just humor me,” Klaus said, plastering a fake smile on his face. “The figment of your imagination.”

Five’s eyes drifted towards the ceiling as he pondered the query. “Sixteen,” he said finally. “Give or take a few months. I didn’t start marking days until I realized I couldn’t come back.”

In Five’s mind, he was still in the apocalypse.

Something squeezed Klaus’s heart hard enough for him to feel liquid oozing out of his chest cavity. “So . . .” he said. “Three years, huh.”

Five squinted at Klaus. “Why are you crying?” he asked. “This is _my_ dream. You’re not allowed to cry.”

Klaus brought one hand up to his cheek. He was, indeed, crying. “Sorry,” he said. _Sorry you were alone for forty-five years. Sorry this happened to you. Sorry we weren’t enough to stop the apocalypse on our own._ “I’m sorry I’m not there,” he said instead.

Five looked like he’d been slapped. “No,” he said, his breaths becoming ragged. “No, you -”

Klaus could have sworn he heard the fracture that ruptured inside of Five. “ _I_ wasn’t there for _you_!” Five bawled. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Klaus, I wasn’t there, I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save _anyone_!” He screeched his next words. “ _I left you!_ I left you and you all died! If I’d been there - if I’d been _with_ you - I could have done something. It’s my fault, _it’s my fucking fault!_ ” He started to tip to the side, and Klaus was certain he’d passed out from working himself up into a frenzy, but then his head collided with Klaus’s sternum, and two scrawny arms wrapped around Klaus’s middle, squeezing Klaus like he was the only thing keeping Five from a thousand-foot drop.

Every single muscle in Klaus’s body froze. He was afraid if he made any sort of movement at all, he’d sever this tenuous connection they had, sending Five skittering away like a wounded animal.

“Fuck,” Five said into Klaus’s shirt, which was quickly becoming damp with tears. “ _You_ aren’t supposed to be the one apologizing.”

 _Yes, I am,_ Klaus thought. _I gave up on you. At first I thought you were dead, and then I thought you’d left on purpose, and then I stopped looking for you._ But he knew that wasn’t what Five needed to hear.

He (slowly, very slowly) reached his arms forward and enveloped Five into a tight embrace. Five stiffened, the edges of his body becoming sharp and bony, threatening to cut Klaus’s skin in their stony rigidness. Five’s breathing stuttered, then stopped. If not for the minute quivering of Five’s body, it would have felt like Klaus was hugging a marble statue.

But Five wasn’t pulling away.

“Five,” Klaus whispered. “I forgive you.”

Five let out a shuddery sigh, his hold on Klaus tightening. “You shouldn’t,” he said into Klaus’s chest.

Klaus pulled Five closer to him until he could feel the boy’s flighty, frantic heartbeat against his own. He cupped one of his hands around the back of Five’s head. “But I do.”

Five positively _melted_ into Klaus’s embrace, his taut muscles relaxing as he burrowed his head farther into Klaus’s chest. The sound that escaped Five’s throat was a wordless wail that sounded like it had been trapped inside his lungs for decades.

“I know, I know,” Klaus soothed, even if he wasn’t entirely sure he did know, rubbing unhurried circles into Five’s back. “Let it out.”

Five did exactly that. He cried until Klaus’s legs fell asleep, until he ran out of tears, until the rhythm of his heart became steady. Not once did Five stop clutching Klaus like a lifeline, and not once did Klaus release his protective hold.

It was only when Five’s breathing began evening out that Klaus dared to even shift. Five’s arms loosened their death grip until they fell back to his sides.

“Five?” Klaus said quietly, still hesitant to let go. “Are you asleep, kiddo?”

Soft snoring answered him.

Klaus let out a breathless giggle. This had easily been one of the most bewildering moments of his life.

Except for maybe the first time he’d ever tried cocaine.

Then he frowned. The place where Five’s forehead was resting against his chest felt uncomfortably warm, even with the wet material of his shirt pressed against it. Klaus shifted so he could tilt Five’s head and place the back of his hand against the kid’s forehead.

Yeah, Klaus didn’t need a thermometer to tell him that Five had a fever. Which explained . . . well, everything. Klaus wasn’t as unobservant as his siblings made him out to be: he knew Five was prone to having flashbacks. The kid was decent at hiding it, but not enough so that Klaus didn’t notice. The fever in addition to Klaus’s mug shattering had triggered something in Five’s brain that had transported him back to the ruins of the apocalypse.

“Okay,” Klaus said, wobbling to his feet. “Let’s get you back to bed.” He lifted Five up bridal-style, one arm supporting Five’s back, the other underneath the boy’s knees, and found out the tiny, murderous bastard actually weighed very little.

Klaus took Five back to the time traveler’s room and gingerly deposited him on the bed. Five let out a little grunt and rolled so his face was smushed into his pillow.

He looked ridiculous, and it was honestly hilarious, but he also looked incredibly young, and that shot a fierce pang through Klaus’s heart.

Klaus scrubbed a hand over his face. It was now clear to him that Five’s issues ran deeper than the assault. But what was he supposed to do with this information? Five had so much bottled up inside his small body, but there was no way he’d admit to any of what he’d said while aware, so forget talking it out. In fact, if Five remembered this conversation in the morning, he might just straight up murder Klaus.

But what could Klaus do to make Five see he didn’t have to shoulder this burden alone? How could Klaus show Five that he didn’t have to be their savior anymore?

 _Aargh_ , why was it so hard to be a responsible big brother? (Because that’s what he was now, regardless of anything Five said.)

“Just you wait,” he told the sleeping form. “I’m gonna find a way to fix you, whether you want my help or not.”


	4. When Everything Was Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of the wonderful comments y'all have left. I wish you knew how stupidly excited I get when I see that someone's left a comment on this dumb story haha.  
> I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up, since every chapter up until now had already been written, and I'm still writing the next chapter. So we will see.

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### When Everything Was Fine

Five was 100% sick, but he 120% did not want to give Klaus the satisfaction of being right, so he spent the next three days adamantly refusing to do anything a sick person would do. Plus, if he stayed in bed all day, that would only give Klaus more of a reason to helicopter him, which he’d already been doing too much of for the last several days.

“You’re just wearing yourself down,” Klaus commented as Five flung daggers into the massive painting of himself above the fireplace.

“Fuck off,” Five said, definitely not out of breath from the mild activity.

Klaus leaned casually against the wall. “You know no one’s going to think any less of you if you admit you’re sick, right?” His tone was playful, but when Five glanced at him, a serious, searching look resided in the medium’s eyes. It made Five think that perhaps his fever was not, in fact, what Klaus was referencing.

Instead of telling Klaus off or ignoring him altogether, Five decided to play along. “Maybe I can handle this _fever_ better than you all think.” His last word was punctuated by a knife thudding in between his own eyes.

“Well,” Klaus said slowly, “maybe we’re worried that a fever is not the only sickness you’re . . . ah, suffering from.”

Okay, now Klaus had lost him. Klaus had been saying weirdly cryptic stuff like this since Five had first woken up with a temperature of 102 degrees. Five didn’t know if it was the fever or the strange dreams he’d been having recently or a combination of the two, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what Klaus was attempting to allude to. “What?”

“You know,” Klaus said, looking like he was floundering for an accurate analogy, “like, maybe you’ve had an infection for a really really _really_ long time, and then you got a fever on _top_ of the infection, and we thought we needed to take care of the fever, but we recently found out about the infection, and the fever might go away _faster_ if we take care of the infection, first, and -”

“Klaus,” Five barked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Um.” Klaus smiled nervously. “Your . . . fever?”

“Something happened,” Five accused. “You’ve been acting weird since I got sick.”

Klaus looked affronted. “What, I can’t be concerned for my ill, littlest brother?”

“It’s not just the fever.” Five abandoned his knife-tossing game in favor of striding toward Klaus, who was starting to look not-so-casual. “Something’s _changed,_ I just don’t know what.”

Klaus’s eye twitched.

Five didn’t understand why Klaus was going through this whole charade. Was this still about the attack at the diner? Because there was no reason to hide that from Five - the rest of his siblings were still openly distressed about that incident. Whatever this _thing_ was, it seemed like Klaus was the only one in on it. Something must have happened to Klaus between Five’s walk and Five waking up sick.

But _what?_ The only thing Five could remember after returning from his stroll was a fuzzy dream where Klaus - 

The color drained from Five’s face.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Five intoned, feeling queasy. He knew how (as gross as it was to admit it) _emotional_ he became in his dreams. He’d come to think of dreams as a sort of a mental release for him. Not that his dreams were ever hunky-dory, but at least he could cry without losing water (a precious resource in the apocalypse) from his body. At least he could scream without anyone hearing.

Klaus avoided looking him in the eye. “Well, you know, it could have been worse,” the medium said.

“How, exactly?” Five bit out, mildly amazed he hadn’t blinked out of the room yet. “If I remember correctly, it ended with me crying like a six year-old.” This was _humiliating._

“It could have been everyone there instead of only your favorite brother,” Klaus said, spreading his arms wide, a lopsided smile on his face.

Five idly tugged at a lock of his hair as he thought. That explained Klaus’s weird(er than normal) behavior the last couple of days. And the reaction was understandable. Five was pretty sure he had basically admitted to being suicidal that day. However, Klaus needed to understand that Five’s mind had regressed during that episode - he’d thought he was sixteen and still in the apocalypse at the time.

Had he wanted to commit suicide at his lowest, darkest points during the apocalypse? Yes. Maybe. But he _hadn’t,_ that was important, and he _didn’t want to anymore,_ which was more important. 

“Listen,” he said, “you know there’s no need to worry about me, right? I don’t really want to die. That was . . . it was just the apocalypse.” Which was true. Giving up was not an option that came to Five easily.

Surprisingly, Klaus nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said. “I mean, you definitely have some self-sacrificial tendencies, but I don’t think you’re suicidal.”

Oh. That was a relief. Then why - 

“Five,” Klaus said slowly. “Do you think it’s your fault the apocalypse happened?”

Five pondered the question. “I wouldn’t say I was the direct cause,” he said finally. “Could I have stopped it if I’d been there? Probably.”

Klaus made a face, as though that hadn’t been the answer he’d been gunning for. Then clarity shadowed his expression, and he cocked his head to the side. “Do you still think it’s your fault we died?”

“Yes,” Five said without hesitation. It was honestly a ridiculous thing to ask. Of _course_ it was his fault his siblings had all died, especially considering it was one of their own that had caused the apocalypse.

Klaus blinked. “Have you ever considered that that’s fucking dumb?”

Five narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I mean,” Klaus said, placing his hands on his hips, “you realize that if you had been there, you most definitely would have burned to a crisp with the rest of us.”

“You don’t know that,” Five retorted.

“ _You_ don’t know,” Klaus returned immediately. “Five, you have no idea what _might_ have happened if you’d stayed. You know what I _do_ know, though?” Klaus’s body was getting more animated as his voice grew louder. “I know that if you had been with us, no one would have warned us about the apocalypse and tried to stop it, because you would have never traveled to the future to see it! Five, you _saved_ us!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that _I left you all!”_ Five’s face was becoming flushed as he raised his own volume to meet Klaus’s.

“You were thirteen!” The look on Klaus’s face left Five unsure as to whether Klaus wanted to hug him or punch him. “Fuck, Five, you were thirteen and you made a mistake. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for that.”

Klaus didn’t _get_ it. Klaus didn’t know what it was like to have a momentarily selfish, split-second decision determine the rest of his life. Klaus didn’t know what it was like to spend his entire existence rectifying that single instant. Klaus didn’t know what it meant to be the only thing between the world (his siblings) and annihilation. Klaus didn’t know the amount of effort it took to justify his existence, justify him surviving when no one else did. 

Klaus didn’t know and Five didn’t _want_ Klaus to know, so Five did the only thing he knew how: go for the kill.

“Easy for you to say,” Five said, acid corroding every word, dripping from every syllable. “You can’t even comprehend the concept of responsibility, seeing as getting high is your greatest skill, second only to your inability to face anything even _resembling_ reality.”

Klaus flinched and took a step back, hurt confusion blaring in his deer-in-the-headlights expression, and Five thought savagely, _I won._

And when he blinked to the stone steps leading to the front door of the house, he pretended he couldn’t hear Dolores ask, _Then why are you the one running?_

* * *

When Five returned to the house that night, it was without excitement or glamour. He didn’t even bother entering through the front door and instead blinked directly to his room. No confrontations - that was all he asked for this night. Luckily, his room was empty, so his wish was fulfilled for once.

He was uncomfortable at the thought of running into Klaus. He hadn’t forgotten his parting words to the medium, and he severely doubted that Klaus had, either.

But he wouldn’t be able to apologize. If he said he was sorry, the conversation would inevitably lead back to the exact content he’d been attempting to avoid in the first place.

Maybe it would be better if Klaus didn’t like him, anyhow. One less person to worry about him.

A noise distracted him from his thoughts. He tilted his head, considering. It had sounded like a footstep, and it had come from downstairs, which was not strange in and of itself, but Five didn’t remember any of the lights being on down there. He had taken that to mean nobody was downstairs.

Sure, _maybe_ it was Klaus, stumbling in the dark on his sleep-ridden way to the toilet, or _maybe_ it was Diego, keeping silent vigil over the foyer until Five’s return, but _maybe_ didn’t mean jack shit when you lived the way Five did.

Five slipped a hand underneath his pillow and brought out a sharp knife. He had no qualms with guns, except for perhaps the sharp ringing they left reverberating inside his skull and bouncing in between his eardrums. When push came to shove, Five chose blades (which he refused to believe had anything at all to do with a particular sibling).

Five crept close to his door, his ears perked for any more sound. He supposed he should have relaxed after several silent seconds passed, but his disquieted feeling grew instead of waned with every noiseless moment.

If there were someone downstairs, he or she was trying very, very hard to stay quiet.

Of course, there was always the possibility that there was no one downstairs, but Five hadn’t stayed alive this long by making assumptions like that.

He slunk out of his room, grateful that the door was already open. He could have blinked out if the door had been closed, but the blue light that always accompanied his blinks made his power less than ideal for stealth missions at night. He peered over the guardrail, his knife clutched tightly in his hand, and strained his eyes in the darkness.

The lower floor seemed to be still and empty. There were no other noises to supplement the one he’d heard - nothing to indicate there was any living creature downstairs.

Five waited. 

From Luther’s room, Five heard the whispering of sheets as the huge man turned over in his sleep.

And then - the nearly silent rustle of fabric from downstairs.

Five bared his teeth in what might have passed for a smile. A welcome tingle spread down his arms as his blood began pumping faster. Taking walks may have become one of his favorite hobbies, but hunting had always been a cherished pastime.

The thought of alerting his siblings never even crossed his mind. He could handle this, just like he had every time before. Waking them would cost precious time and risk tipping the intruder off.

No, this was a solo op, and no one was a better pick for it than Five.

He briefly considered taking the stairs, but decided against it. To go slow enough not to make any noise would take far too long. He would just have to blink to a closed room far enough away from the intruder that he or she wouldn’t notice the blue light.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Blinking to a location he couldn’t see always required more energy and effort than his nearby blinks. The original noise he’d heard had sounded like it originated from the living room, so he blinked to the kitchen pantry. It was a tight fit, but nothing his newly flexible body couldn’t handle.

He staggered and barely stopped himself from falling into a wall. He’d never admit it out loud, especially to Klaus, but he was still recovering from the fever. He hadn’t eaten a whole lot since he’d become sick, and his body was starting to remember that.

 _You’re fine_ , he commanded himself. He eased the door open slowly and silently, his ears perked for any more noises from the intruder.

He was in the process of sneaking across the tiled floor when a figure stepped across the threshold from the living room to the kitchen.

The figure, whom Five could barely make out in the darkness, froze.

Five did not.

In a blue flash he was on top of the man’s back, one arm wrapped around the man’s throat, the other holding the knife tip to the man’s eye. The intruder had been in the process of raising his gun up, but he stilled.

“Who are you?” Five said quietly, his grip unwavering. “Why are you here?”

The man said only two words: “With me.”

And Five realized that, despite all his precautions, he had made one critical error: he’d assumed there was only one intruder.

He blinked off the man’s back just as something discharged with a crackling sound. He spun around in time to watch the man collapse to the floor and writhe.

“Blimey, mate, I’m so sorry,” whispered an accented voice from the living room. “It was an accident, I swear.”

“Sod off,” panted the guy on the floor in a similar accent.

Five rolled his eyes. They were idiots. He had nothing to worry about.

“You _knew_ he could teleport, Jamie,” the man on the floor grumbled as he slowly rose to his feet. “I should have never trusted you with a taser.”

The other man, whom Five still had yet to see, actually _whined._ “Come off it, Greg. I did my best.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Greg said, but by then Five had already blinked to the living room, near where he’d heard the other man’s voice.

He took a split second to spare a thought for the man’s size. _Wow, this guy is massive._ The man towered above Five, his broad shoulders nearly obscuring his face.

Five had fought bigger.

As the lumbering form turned to face Five, the time traveler placed one foot on the back of Jamie’s knee and shoved hard, using all his body weight to propel himself farther. Jamie let out a startled grunt as his leg caved and he dropped to one knee. Five flipped the knife around in his hand - even with the guy on one knee, Five still couldn’t reach Jamie’s neck, so he shoved the knife into the man’s stomach.

Or at least tried to. Jamie reacted surprisingly quickly and twisted to the side. The blade only grazed his abdomen instead of plunging inside it, as Five had intended.

Jamie reached one large hand down, his fingers grasping for Five’s hair. Five ducked away and blinked to Jamie’s other side, his knife slicing through the air horizontally. Jamie’s thigh took the hit this time. “Ow,” the behemoth complained.

Five heard a footstep behind him and immediately blinked backward so that Greg, who’d been attempting to sneak up on him, was directly in front of himself.

Greg was quick on the uptake, so as Five leapt forward with his knife, Greg rolled away without even throwing a glance back.

Five cursed. They should both be dead by now, but they weren’t. They were strangely good at predicting his blinks, almost as though they knew -

Five resisted the urge to slam his palm to his forehead. He was so stupid. It should not have taken him this long to realize that these men were with the Commission.

But, to be fair, their first impression on Five had been somewhat misleading.

Five was still a much better fighter than these agents, though. This would be over in five minutes. If he was slightly out of breath and dizzy from the repeated blinks, well, they didn’t need to know that.

“D’ya mind making this easier for us?” Jamie said, moving to join Greg and Five in the kitchen.

“I see the Commission just takes anyone these days,” Five said dryly.

“That’s quite a lip you’ve got on you,” Greg growled, the “you” sounding more like “yuh.”

Five almost smiled, despite himself. This was the normalcy he’d been craving.

He blinked beside Greg and waggled his fingers, a smug expression on his face. “Heya.” He couldn’t help himself. Finally, a chance to let loose and be himself.

Greg was quick to turn - he was a Commission agent, after all - but not quick enough. By the time the agent faced Five completely, Five was gone, appearing behind Jamie in a shower of blue.

This was honestly too easy. You’d think the Commission would’ve known of Five’s skills by now and sent the best of the - 

Five’s thoughts ended abruptly as a seizing pain told hold of his whole body. He crumpled to the floor, his muscles spasming, a strangled noise escaping his throat as electricity coursed through his body.

He’d been tased? But Jamie and Greg were both in view and accounted for, so - 

_Fool me once_ , Five thought bitterly. Why had he never stopped to consider there might be more than Jamie and Greg in the house?

Five, unable to do anything more than twitch on the ground, rolled his eyes to the side as a figure stepped forward from the dark recesses of the living room. From Five’s position, he could only see the heavy boots of this newcomer.

The figure spoke, his voice cool and disinterested. “I was told you were a paragon of arrogance, Five.” The man crouched down so that his scruffy, stubbled face and startlingly blue eyes filled Five’s vision. Then he smiled, a gleaming flash of white. “It seems she was right.”

Five already knew he was in trouble, but at the mention of “she,” his trepidation grew.

Some of that must have been displayed in Five’s eyes, because the man said as he flipped Five onto his stomach, “Oh, you didn’t think the Handler would let you go that easily, did you?”

The man gripped one of Five’s forearms with a large hand. His fingers encircled the whole circumference of the limb, and Five’s already stuttering heart rate skyrocketed. The palm of the man’s hand was uncomfortably warm. Uncomfortably tight. Uncomfortably _there_.

 _Stop,_ Five spat to himself. _This isn’t_ him _, and this isn’t the same. This isn’t the same._

It was one thing for his mind to know that, and another thing entirely for his body to reflect that knowledge. His breathing was ragged. His heart was pounding. The breaths he took weren’t bringing air into his lungs. Was he dying? Distantly, he knew he wasn’t, but anything not right now, right here, in his immediate vicinity was too far away and not worth the effort.

“Relax,” the man said, scorn layering his tone. “It’s just a taser. I’m quite certain you’ve suffered worse.” Cold metal clicked around Five’s wrists, cuffing his hands behind his back.

Then the hand released Five’s arm, and his heartbeat slowly leveled out. By the time his muscles were still again, his breathing was steady.

“You could’ve done that _before_ he cut me,” Jamie said grumpily as Five was hauled to his feet.

“You should have caught him sooner,” was the man’s apathetic response. “It was two against one.”

Greg stepped forward, indignation written on his face. “I could’a done it, Allen, I swear, but -”

Normally, Five would be tearing his hair out by the roots as he listened to this asinine conversation, but now he needed the additional time they were unknowingly giving him. His body was back to normal, albeit achey, which meant he could blink. If not for the handcuffs, Five would have gone for Greg and the gun in his hands, but he needed a different strategy.

Jamie’s low voice returned. “I _told_ you, it was an _accident.”_

“Shut up, both of you,” said the man who’d tased Five - Allen - sounding weary.

Allen had to have the key to the cuffs somewhere on his body. Five could blink to a closet in the house and get the three goons to split up. Once Five found Allen alone, then he could . . . 

_You could what, exactly?_ the ever-helpful voice of Dolores cut in. _Even if your body were in tip-top shape, which it’s not, and this guy wasn’t a trained Commissions agent, which he is, your hands are immobilized behind your back. What would you be able to do?_

Dolores talked too much.

Five tuned back into the conversation when Allen leaned forward, his voice directed at Five. “I bet you’re wondering why we’re here.”

“Not really,” Five said. He flashed a cheeky smile, almost unable to help himself. “I don’t give a fuck, actually.”

Allen’s fist connected with the side of Five’s face before he could react. His head snapped to the side, and his temple throbbed in a steady, uninterrupted rhythm: _arrogant, arrogant, arrogant._

“Children should speak better to their elders,” Allen said absently. “The Handler sent us, as you may have already guessed. She wants you alive.”

Five frowned. That didn’t make any sense. The only reason she would order that was if -

Allen leered down at him. “So she can kill you herself.”

Ah, yes, that sounded more like her. Not that he’d be seeing her any time soon - these goons were not the best and certainly not the brightest if they thought handcuffs would be enough to restrain Five.

So, closet in the foyer it was. Five blinked.

Or rather, he tried to blink. As soon as the prickle that had become as familiar as breathing started in his fingertips, fire laced through Five’s bloodstream, halting any thought or action that wasn’t pain.

Five’s entire body tensed, his muscles involuntarily straining taut. His back arched as his nails dug into the flesh of his palms and a clenched groan escaped his lungs.

“Whoops,” Allen said. “I forgot to mention that these cuffs were created with you specifically in mind.” Five could hear the smile curled around Allen’s voice like a contented cat sprawled out in a patch of sunlight. “Hope it’s not too bothersome.”

 _Fuck_ this guy, and _fuck_ the Handler, but Five wasn’t about to give Allen the satisfaction of repeating any of that out loud, so instead, he said through ragged breaths, “Oh? I hadn’t noticed.”

He was expecting another blow to the head for that comment, but to his surprise, Allen laughed. “A sense of humor, that’s nice. Better hold on to that while you can.”

“Boss, you want me to get the suitcase?” Greg asked.

“You mean it’s not attached to either of your wrists?” Allen said, his tone icy.

Five rolled his eyes. “Don’t tell me you actually follow that rule, Allen.” _Nobody_ followed the keep-your-suitcase-on-your-person-at-all-times rule.

“ _I_ do,” said Allen self-importantly. “And so _should_ my men.”

“Weeeell,” Jamie hedged, “you wanted us to carry a taser _and_ a gun, and lugging the suitcase around on _top_ of that -”

“Jamie, just shut up,” Greg said. Then, to Allen: “Don’t worry, I hid it back at the motel.”

Before Allen could respond, a sleepy voice from upstairs said, “Five? Is that you down there?”

Something hot and fierce shot through Five as Jamie and Greg both aimed their guns upward.

Five propelled his body forward, slamming into Greg and pushing him off-balance. Next, he turned to Jamie and kicked the spot on the agent’s thigh he’d sliced earlier.

As Jamie staggered, Five shouted, “Klaus! Get back!”

A tousled head of hair popped over the railing. “Five?” Klaus said again, but sounding somewhat more alert this time.

 _Bang!_ The gunshot originated from behind Five, its echo ricocheting in Five’s ears. Klaus’s head ducked back behind the wall at the noise.

Before Five had the chance to turn around, one of Allen’s hands fisted in his hair and pulled him back against the agent’s chest.

“Let’s go!” Allen shouted at his two men, his free hand waving a smoking pistol.

A door upstairs crashed open, and then a wired Luther appeared at the railing. Hot on his heels was Diego, a knife gripped in his hand. Both of the Hargreeves seemed to take in the scene fairly quickly, but Diego was the first to make eye contact with Five. The vigilante’s eyes studied the smallest Hargreeve, fear, anger and concern all warring to hold a position on Diego’s face.

The next report of the gun was close enough to Five’s head to make his ears ring deafeningly. A piece of the bannister next to Diego exploded in a cloud of white dust.

“Everybody stay where they -” Allen started, then cursed and stumbled as something thunked into his shoulder.

Five hadn’t been able to trace the dagger’s path through the air, but he had no doubt it had curved at some point. He used Allen’s confusion to dart away from the agent, wincing only slightly as some of his hair was ripped out of his scalp in the process.

“Grab him!” Allen roared as he tore the knife out of his chest.

Jamie lunged for Five, and, strictly out of habit, Five blinked.

And immediately remembered why he hadn’t in the first place.

He dropped to his knees as the pain cleaved his body in two. He had to bite down on his tongue until he tasted blood in order to keep the scream bottled in his trachea.

“It was a good try,” Jamie said as he loomed over Five’s heavily panting form. “But you’ll have to do better than that.” He reached down and grabbed Five’s upper arm.

Then flew to the side as something huge collided with him.

Luther bent towards Five, concern etched into deep lines on his face. “Are you okay?”

Five glared at him. “I didn’t need your help,” he said, gasping for breath.

“I didn’t ask for your permission,” Luther replied calmly.

“Well, you _should_ have,” was all Five got out before Jamie punched Luther in the face. Luther took a half-step back before retaliating with a fist of his own, and then the two large men were grappling with one another.

If only he could get these _stupid_ handcuffs off, then he could help. He was of absolutely no use to his siblings like this - even worse, he was a hindrance. They would have to focus part of their energy on protecting him as well as fighting, and that wouldn’t do.

Five struggled to his feet, his gaze concentrated on Allen, who was attempting to staunch the flow of blood from his shoulder. Five’s original objective had been the key to these cuffs, and that had yet to change.

“Five,” Diego said from beside the time traveler. “Let us handle this.”

“The last time you all handled something without me, the world blew up,” Five said. He was more annoyed than angry, but he knew that would change the next time Diego opened his mouth.

Diego scowled. “Don’t you get it, man? It’s _our_ turn to protect _you_.”

Something acidic and vile clambered up Five’s throat at those words. Pain still radiated throughout his body, although not as strongly, and his skin was crawling from Jaime’s brief contact. Perhaps there were more important things going on, but Five honestly did not give a single fuck at the moment. “Turn?” he said. “There are no _turns,_ Diego. There’s no _quid pro quo.”_ His voice was growing louder as he spoke, as if that would help him swallow the bile back down. “There are jobs, there are debts, and there are consequences. You make a mistake, and you pay for it, okay? That’s all there is to it.”

“And when will your debt be paid?”

Klaus, _damn_ him, had somehow appeared next to Diego while Five hadn’t noticed. The medium was studying him with a steady look Five was unused to seeing on Klaus’s face.

“When I’m _dead,”_ Five snarled, but that wasn’t true - nothing would ever make up for what he had(n’t) done.

Diego’s attention was drawn toward Allen, who had begun to stumble towards them. “Klaus, get him out of here,” he said.

Five balked. _“What_ did you just say?” he said, but Diego had already turned away and Klaus had already begun ushering him towards the front door.

“Five,” Klaus said conversationally, “you need therapy.”

Five planted his feet. “I’m not leaving.”

“Oh, yes you are,” Klaus said in a I-know-you’re-fifty-eight-but-I’m-purposefully-going-to-treat-you-like-you’re-six tone of voice. “We all saw you try to blink back there. You’re not going to be able to help.”

Five wanted to scream. Or maybe cry. But this wasn’t a dream, so neither of those options were available to him. “Klaus, these guys are Commission agents. I need to help.”

“Yeah?” Klaus said. “Help in what way, exactly? Rush in there and yell to distract them?” Five winced internally, but Klaus kept going. “Here’s what would _actually_ happen - one of them would nab you, threaten to kill or maim you, escape, and we would never see you again. Is that what you _want_ to happen, Five? Because I sure don’t.”

“I can take care of myself.” The words were petulant, Five knew, but he hoped his tone was not.

Klaus laughed, sounding almost hysterical. “Five, you are _literally_ handcuffed and can’t use your powers. If there were ever a time you physically could not be independent, this would be it.” He glanced behind him. “Look, Vanya, Allison and Ben are already there. They’re going to be fine, okay?”

Klaus didn’t say it, but Five heard the next line: _They don’t need you._ It hit him harder than the taser - he stumbled and fell to his knees, the words circling his head and dancing in front of his eyes. _They don’t need you._ He felt like he was breathing through a thin straw, but that couldn’t be right. He hadn’t tried to blink. What was happening? _They don’t need you._

“Five?” Klaus’ worried face appeared in front of him. “Hey, what’s going on? Did you try to use your powers?”

What was the point? Why was he here? _They don’t need you._ They didn’t need him. They were fine without him. He was horrified to feel tears pool behind his eyes, and even more horrified when he realized he couldn’t make them go away. _They don’t need you_. He existed to protect them. His job was to defend them. What did he do when they could stand on their own, fight on their own?

When had they grown up?

When had he stopped?

“Five, buddy, are you dreaming again? Because now is _definitely_ not an ideal time for that.”

 _Get it together,_ Five commanded himself, but the tears were already sliding down his cheeks. He was as equally unsuccessful when he tried to prevent the sob from bursting out of his chest. 

His entire identity was built on the foundation that he protected his siblings. It was why he had taught himself quantum physics during the apocalypse. It was why he had moved up in the Commission, why he killed all those people they told him to. It was why he had tried _so_ _fucking hard_ to stop the apocalypse. 

It wasn’t about the world - it had never been about the world for him.

But his siblings were moving on, becoming mature and capable without him. They didn’t need him anymore. He couldn’t help them anymore. Where did that leave him? _What_ did that leave him?

“Oh, shit, Five, I think you’re having a panic attack.” Klaus hovered around him, his hands fluttering. “Uh, you probably need space right now, I’m pretty sure, but I told Diego I’d take care of you, and leaving you alone in the middle of a battle is not what he had in mind in terms of keeping you safe.”

Five was aware Klaus was talking, and he even registered the medium’s words, but they didn’t mean anything. Nothing meant anything, anymore, and Five knew he sounded dramatic, but he couldn’t get himself to stop crying like a damn baby.

“Did something happen?” Klaus’s tone went from concerned to dangerous in a split second. “Did they do something to you?”

Five bent forward, pressing his forehead to his knees, and attempted to get his breathing under control. _Stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. Don’t give them any more reason to believe you’re helpless._ That word tipped him over the edge again. He _was_ helpless, which meant he was worse than useless, which meant he was wasting everyone’s time.

The thundering report of a nearby gun ripped Five out of his head. _That sounded close,_ Five thought. He heard a soft, “Oh,” from in front of him, and his heart came to a sudden stop.

Klaus was swaying on his feet, his hand almost absent-mindedly over his abdomen. Then he collapsed.

“NO!” Five screamed, his eyes focused on only the blood that was leaking out of his brother’s body, staining the hardwood floor. _“Klaus! KLAUS!”_

“Shut _up_ ,” came Greg’s voice from behind him, and then a hand grabbed the back of his shirt collar.

This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening. Five hadn’t saved his siblings from the end of the entire freaking world just for Klaus to die from a _gunshot wound._ Five thrashed frantically in Greg’s grip, his feet slamming into the floor like he was throwing a temper tantrum. _“Klaus, get up!”_

Klaus didn’t move.

Five couldn’t blink, he knew that, but he tried anyway. As the pain erupted throughout his system, he tried it again, sending a new, fresh wave of agony sweeping down his body. Every single cell was on fire. His nerves crackled with what felt like electricity. For a moment, everything went dark, as though someone had drawn a black-out curtain in front of his eyes. Somebody was screaming. Was it him? 

Greg let go of Five’s shirt in favor of wrapping his arm around the boy’s chest. “Enough. Let’s go.”

“Klaus, _please,”_ Five moaned, unable to match his previous volume around his flighty heartbeat as he was dragged away.

There was no response.


	5. Everything Was Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMGGGG all of your comments on the last chapter had me squealing like an eleven year-old (and laughing really really hard. That pic of Jesse gets me every time). Thank you so so so much for all of your kind words. I didn't think I'd finish this chapter so quickly, but I was genuinely fueled by the comments haha.  
> A couple of things about this chapter:  
> I had a totally different idea when I first started writing this chapter, but then it kind of spiraled away from me into . . . this. Which I actually love a lot, but it's okay if you guys don't.  
> Disclaimer #1: I don’t share Diego’s opinions on accents. All thoughts on accents in this chapter are Diego’s and Diego’s alone.  
> Disclaimer #2: I apologize for Diego’s potty mouth. I think he cusses more than Five.  
> Disclaimer #3: I’ve never read the comics, so I honestly don’t know how Allison’s power works at all, but I used it anyway, so, whoops if I got it wrong.

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### Everything Was Mine

Klaus ached all over. What had he done last night? Ecstasy? No, this pain was different. It was sharper, more concentrated. And, while confused, his mind seemed clearer than it ever had been the day after a drug binge.

Someone was screaming his name. 

_“Klaus, get up!”_

_Five._ The voice was so young, so small.

Klaus still couldn’t recall exactly what had happened, but one thing was crystal clear: Five needed him. Not that the boy would ever, ever, in a million gazillion years, admit that out loud. He probably didn’t even realize it himself, but Klaus knew.

His brother _needed_ him.

He tried to force his eyes open and found that he couldn’t. The pain still sat with him, from a place he couldn’t identify, and he was sure that it had something to do with why nothing in his body was moving even though he specifically _told_ it to.

Five screamed again, but this time there were no distinguishable words. It was just one long, torturous siren of agony.

Five was hurt, and Five needed him. 

He strained every muscle in his body, at this point trying to move _anything._

“Klaus, _please.”_

Klaus focused on the voice of his brother, imagined it being right in front of him, and _pushed_ with everything he had.

Nothing happened, and darkness crept forward, patiently waiting for him to lose himself completely.

* * *

When the gunshot rang out, Diego had been standing over the man who’d grabbed Five and wrenching three of his knives out of the corpse. He’d been watching Allison and Luther take down the bigger baddie, had been wondering, _Weren’t there three of them?,_ when that deafening sound had detonated from behind him.

Diego had always prided himself on his quick reflexes, but he was still turning when he heard, _“Klaus!”_

Time slowed to a crawl. A figure was wobbling in the foyer, one hand on his stomach.

Then time resumed its regular march forward, and Diego watched Klaus drop like a stone.

Diego sprinted toward his brother, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat - _why did I send Klaus with Five, he can’t fight, I_ knew _he couldn’t fight_ \- and Five’s screams ringing in his ears. What was that he’d told Five? _“It’s_ our _turn to protect_ you.” That was a joke, because apparently they couldn’t even protect themselves.

When he reached the foyer, he skidded to a stop. Klaus’s bloody body was on his left. On his right, the third perp had just hauled Five out of sight, headed for the front door. 

He couldn’t tell if Klaus was breathing, but it wasn’t really much of a choice, as callous as that may sound. He wasn’t sure if he could do anything for Klaus, whereas the image of Five being pressed up against a brick wall _(there was blood, Diego could see that Five was bleeding, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from, and Five’s normally animated, twitchy body was hardly moving, hardly resisting)_ was still fresh and raw in his mind.

So no, it wasn’t much of a choice, but he had to force Klaus’s pale face to the back of his mind anyway as he charged right. The front door was swinging shut, which meant they’d already made it outside.

 _“He took the boy outside,”_ the old lady with the sudoku book had said. _“He looked sick - the boy, I mean.”_

 _He_ is _sick,_ Diego had wanted to say. _More than any of us know, I think._ Because Diego _knew_ things; gut feelings that were rarely wrong.

He had a gut feeling now that he was about to lose two brothers.

He shoved _that_ deep down, though, way back with what he’d done to Mom, with what he _hadn’t_ done for Eudora, and barreled through the door.

The perp was hurriedly trudging down the dark sidewalk, dragging a mostly limp Five in front of himself. 

One of Diego’s three knives sliced the still, cold night, sinking into the man’s shoulder blade. The perp stumbled, and Diego’s second dagger was already tumbling through the air. Unfortunately, the man turned to face him, and the weapon merely grazed his arm when it should have thunked into the top of his spine.

With the perp now fully facing Diego, the vigilante was able to get a good look at his sibling in the orange glow of the streetlights. The kid’s face was horribly white, making the dark circles ringing his unfocused eyes stand out even more. Sweat beaded his brow, and every breath sounded like a torturous chore.

Diego genuinely didn’t know who was closer to death’s door - Klaus or Five.

“What did you do to him?” Diego growled, the third and final knife poised above his shoulder. The only thing staying his hand was the pistol pointed at his chest.

“Nothin’,” the perp said in some stupid accent that made Diego want to kill him even more. “He did this to himself.”

“Bullshit,” Diego said immediately. Five seemed to be becoming aware of his surroundings, at least, because he’d begun blinking slowly and moving his head from side to side. Without the kid’s obnoxious, arrogant veneer, Five looked so _tiny._

 _He’d been tiny that day, too, when Diego had thrown open the back door to the diner, hoping with every fiber of his being that he would find Five sick with food poisoning but somehow_ knowing _that it was something bad, something_ wrong -

The perp shrugged, indifferent as to whether Diego believed him or not. “It’s the truth, mate. Now -” his voice took a harder, rougher edge - “I’m gonna need you to put that knife down. I saw what you did to Allen with those.”

“Sure,” Diego said, no humor in his voice, “as soon as you put that gun of yours down.”

Could Diego throw his knife in the time between the gun firing and the bullet entering his body? Not likely, or, if he were being completely honest, _definitely_ not, but it was clear from the uneasy glances of the man that the perp didn’t know that.

“Diego.” Five’s voice was raspy, probably because of all the screaming he’d done earlier. “Klaus -”

“I know,” Diego said, unintentionally reverting to the tone of voice he used when reassuring regular citizens. “Ben’s with him.” Which wasn’t necessarily a lie - Ben was _probably_ with him. Five didn’t need the knowledge and Diego didn’t need the reminder that Diego had left his bleeding brother for another. “He’s going to be fine.” That was a lie he felt less confident about.

Shove it down, shove it down.

Diego wasn’t sure if Five believed him, wasn’t sure if Five believed anything that came out of their mouths, but it seemed to be enough for the time being.

And then Five had to open his fucking mouth.

“Diego, leave.” Five’s voice was authoritative, like a general commanding his loyal troops. His tone brooked no argument and, given his sickly pallor, was almost impressive.

Except for the part where Five was really _really_ fucking stupid. Just _how_ the five-foot nothing managed to infuriate Diego as much as he did was honestly beyond the vigilante.

As soon as he saved the bastard, he was going to shoot Five in the face.

“Five,” Diego said, trying to shove the anger down, too, but anger had never been something Diego could keep contained like Allison or Klaus or Luther. In fact, most emotions seemed to come easier to Diego than the rest of his siblings. “I’m not going to leave you. Let’s get that into your _thick fucking_ skull and then move on.”

Heat flared in those previously dazed eyes, and Diego would be lying if he said that wasn’t a welcome sight.

“Oi,” the perp said. “You can’t talk to a kid like that.”

 _“Shut up,”_ Diego and Five both said.

“I don’t need your _help,_ Diego,” Five said, spitting _help_ like it was a blasphemy. “I never have, and I never will.”

Diego decided not to point out the fact that Five was handcuffed and currently looked like death personified, because a) he doubted Five would care, and b) Diego was too furious to do anything other than dive straight to the heart of the matter. “Don’t pretend that this is about what you _need,_ Five. This has always been about what you _want.”_

Five’s eyes narrowed, but Diego wasn’t finished. “Say what you mean: you don’t _want_ our help. You don’t want to have to rely on anybody but yourself. Why? Because we’re not good enough?”

“Because I’m _better,”_ Five snarled, but something flickered in his expression for a split second.

The perp adjusted his hold on Five. “You two about done?” Diego noticed the way he winced when he moved, noticed the way the gun was beginning to tremble in his grip. He was losing blood, which meant Diego could beat him in the waiting game.

“Is _that_ why you’re in this situation right now?” Diego scoffed at his brother. “Is it because you’re _better_ that _I’m_ not the one being held hostage?”

 _“I can’t let you guys die again!”_ Five screamed.

Diego paused. Five’s eyes flitted to the side, as though he couldn’t meet Diego’s gaze.

If Diego were Klaus, that admission would be enough for the anger to bleed away. If Diego were Luther, that would be enough for him to awkwardly concede. If Diego were Allison, that would be enough for him to apologize profusely.

But Diego was only Diego, so instead of dissipating his rage, the declaration simply made his fury blaze brighter. “And how do you think _we_ feel, idiot? We don’t want you to _leave_ again. Do your feelings matter more than ours? Do ours not _count?”_

Five still didn’t look directly at Diego, but something Diego thought resembled guilt flashed across his face.

“Okay,” the perp said. “This was nice and all, but I’ve kind of got places to be, so -”

“Did you miss that whole conversation, man?” Diego said. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Five. But I can cut you a deal - you let Five go now, and I won’t kill you.” _This_ statement Diego was positive was a lie - nobody shot and kidnapped his brothers and got away unscathed.

The perp laughed, and that was when Diego spotted Luther creeping up behind the man. Gorilla boy must have gone out the back door in order to loop around the house and get behind the perp. 

Diego would have applauded Luther’s strategy if not for the gun trained on him and the increasingly jittery man behind said gun.

“I’m as good as dead if I don’t return with the boy,” the perp said.

Diego flashed his best “I don’t give a fuck” grin. “Sorry, not my problem.”

The perp clutched Five tighter, and Diego didn’t miss the hard flinch that shuddered Five’s whole body. 

The rage that overcame him was instantaneous, nearly clouding his vision in a red haze. _“Don’t touch him,”_ Diego wanted to shriek, but this was a hostage negotiation, and, therefore, a delicate matter. Screaming at the guy with the gun was generally frowned upon in these situations. 

“What’s to stop me from shooting you right now?” the perp said, and his eyes darted to the knife in Diego’s hand.

Diego let a different kind of smile curl onto his face. “You know exactly what’s stopping you.” The perp was exactly where Diego wanted him - he knew Diego had _something,_ something scary, but he didn’t know exactly what it was. He didn’t know Diego’s power; more importantly, he didn’t know Diego’s limitations.

Five wrenched his eyes shut. “Diego,” he said, and if Diego didn’t know any better, it would’ve sounded like he was begging, “ _please,_ go.”

“Five,” Diego said, as pleasantly as he could around his incessant ire, “stop talking.”

Luther was edging closer to the perp; soon, he would be near enough to grab the gun. All Diego had to do was keep the man distracted, and then -

And then the front door flung open, and the perp swung the gun to Five’s temple and squeezed the trigger.

Luther lunged forward, but he was a second too late. The cry that exploded from his chest was thunderous. “FIVE!”

Diego watched the body crumple to the sidewalk and thought, _Shove it down, shove it down._

* * *

“I’m going outside,” Vanya said suddenly. She’d been hovering awkwardly in the corner, clearly out of her depth as Allison and Ben huddled around a dying Klaus, so Allison didn’t fault her for heading to the door. In the meantime, Allison refused to let herself think about anything at all happening outside, because if she did, then images of bleeding tattoos and glassy eyes would overwhelm her and _I heard a rumor that everyone was okay._

That almost made her laugh out loud, because there had always been plenty of rumors circulating about the distinguished Umbrella Academy, but never _that_ one.

She focused on Klaus, whom Luther had helped Allison and Ben lug onto a gurney in their hospital room (that had been something strange Allison had learned about the Outside World - most houses did not have a hospital room. _Where,_ she had wondered, _do people go when they get shot?_ But that was something else she learned, later on - most people didn’t _get_ shot) before he’d dashed out the back door. _I heard a rumor that you protected Five,_ she’d wanted to tell him. _I heard a rumor that you were safe. I heard a rumor that you were invincible._ But the words got stuck somewhere in between her heart and her tongue, as they always did, so all she said was, “Good luck.”

She’d known early on that her power could not do everything, but it wasn’t until she was thirteen that she realized her power didn’t work when it mattered.

 _I heard a rumor that Five came back,_ she’d said, staring at the front door hard enough to burn a hole through the wood.

 _I heard a rumor that Ben wasn’t dead,_ she’d said years later, staring at Ben’s statue hard enough for her eyes to water.

Her power was _nothing,_ but she was nothing without it, and wasn’t that a lovely conundrum?

She was pulled back to the present when Ben said, “The bullet’s still in him.”

Ben had torn off Klaus’s shirt while Allison had been buried in memories. Blood had already soaked into the gurney and stained Ben’s hands, but the ragged hole in Klaus’s stomach was almost black compared to the crimson surrounding it. Klaus’s breathing was shallow, his skin waxy. “And that’s . . . not a good thing, right?” Allison said.

Ben shook his head, his bloodied fingers clenched, white-knuckled, around the bed frame.

Allison could hear Diego yelling something outside, but his words were muffled. He sounded angry, but when was he ever _not_ angry? Had something happened? The fact that Allison could hear him at all meant he was close to the house, still, right? Did that mean the bad guys had succeeded in taking Five? Did that mean Diego had caught them before they could get very far?

_I heard a rumor that I heard a rumor that -_

She didn’t have time to dwell on anything other than the brother that was right in front of her; the brother who’d always been able to make her laugh, no matter what kind of training Reginald had put her through that day, no matter how hopeless she’d felt cooped up in that crowded, lonely house.

 _Not Klaus,_ she begged.

But who would listen to the girl who’d only ever been good at tricking people?

Allison’s head snapped up. “Ben, you’ve been reading medical textbooks for your classes, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, his eyes fixated on Klaus’s closed ones, “but _reading_ about surgery and _performing_ surgery are two entirely different beasts.”

Allison gripped his arm. “I can help. I remember enough from when we were kids to get him prepped.” She immediately set to work, hooking Klaus up to the ventilator as Ben pulled on a pair of gloves with shaking hands. She glanced at Ben out of the corner of her eye, and her heart clenched at how young and vulnerable he looked in that moment (like Five, who was still outside, who was still somewhere that _wasn’t here -_ )

“Allison -” Ben choked out. “I don’t know if I -”

Allison brandished the confident smile that graced so many tabloid covers: the one that said, “I made it this far, and you can, too.” Never mind that she’d cheated to get to a place so many other people had drowned clawing their way up to. Never mind that along the way she had lost the most integral parts of her. “I know you can.” She took a deep breath and looked Ben straight in the eye. _They’re just words, and they_ _don’t matter, anyway. No matter what, they never matter._ (Except in the court of law, when determining custody of her child, but who was keeping track?) “I heard a rumor -”

_That you weren’t dead._

_That Five came back._

_That I was a good person._

“ - that you saved Klaus’s life.”

Then again, Five _was_ back, and Ben _wasn’t_ dead, so maybe her power wasn’t worthless, after all.

Then again, she thought as she gazed at Klaus’s bloody torso, as she heard the gunshot and Luther’s scream from outside, maybe every rumor has a price to pay.


	6. All the King's Horses, and All the King's Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! At least the last chapter hadn't ended on, like, a cliffhanger or anything . . . ha . . . ha. . . .  
> This chapter took me foreeeeever to write, so, apologies again. You guys are amazing, and I love you all so much for reading this.  
> I will HESITANTLY say that I think this is the second-to-last chapter, if all goes according to plan. (Seriously, I love you guys, thank you for reading. Please take care of yourselves.)

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### All the King's Horses, and All the King's Men

Diego stared at the scene in front of him: Vanya, framed in the doorway, a look of absolute horror glazed onto her face; Luther, frozen in place, his huge arms stretched forward, reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore; the perp, his body slumped halfway onto the street, a knife embedded between his glazed eyes; and Five. . . .

Five on his knees, looking straight at Diego with a lost, bewildered expression in his eyes, as though he couldn’t believe he was still alive.

Diego raised his arm to point at Five. “Better, my ass,” he said, then promptly slid sideways to the ground.

“Diego!” he heard Vanya screech.

Of _course_ he would collapse after delivering a badass line to his know-it-all-brother, he thought as Vanya rushed towards him. But, to be fair, he’d just taken a bullet to the shoulder. 

From his sideways position on the concrete, Diego could still see Five’s nearly immobile body. “Diego . . . ?” the kid softly echoed. Something was rising fast in those wild blue eyes, something animalistic, but Diego couldn’t place what it was. He didn’t know how to make it stop.

“Diego?” Five said again, and his breaths were coming out faster, in shorter intervals, what little color left in his cheeks draining away -

Five was _terrified._

“Five? You still with us, kid?” Diego said as he struggled to sit up with Vanya’s help, the pain burning a hole in his shoulder. Five was looking at Diego, but it didn’t feel like he was looking _at_ Diego. Wherever Five’s mind had taken him, it wasn’t here.

“Five,” Diego said, daggers edging his tone.

“No,” Five mumbled. “No no no no.”

It was obvious to Diego that words weren’t getting through to the kid. Using Vanya as a crutch, he stumbled to his feet. “Luther -” he said, but Number One was already on the move.

The next breath Five took sounded more like a whistle than an inhale, and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground. Or would have, had Luther not caught him before his head slammed into the pavement. Luther looked at Diego and Vanya with panic in his eyes. “What’s wrong with him?”

Diego actually laughed out loud, which caused him to grimace, but it was so worth it because _damn_ that was hilarious. “I think a better question would be what _isn’t_ wrong with him.”

Luther shot him a look that said, “That’s not funny, Diego,” which was a little true, because it was more depressing than funny, but hadn’t that described their collective childhood?

Luther gathered Five into his arms, and if Five had looked tiny before, he looked positively miniscule now. “We need to get them inside,” he said to Vanya, like Diego wasn’t even there.

Diego was beginning to feel the teensiest bit light-headed, but not enough not to remember who else was inside. “Klaus,” he croaked, all previous mirth forgotten.

Vanya glanced away, and Luther frowned. No good news, then. Diego ignored the thought that if Klaus died from this, Diego would have one more memory to bury, one more name he couldn’t say without feeling like he was choking.

“Can you walk?” Vanya asked Diego, earnestness scrawled over her pinched face.

Diego scoffed. “I was shot in the shoulder, not the foot.” And if he still leaned heavily on Vanya as she led him to the front door, she didn’t say anything. Luther followed them closely, Five’s limp body looking like an actual doll in Luther’s grasp.

They staggered into the house like the worst, ragtag group of musketeers Diego could imagine, which made him want to laugh again, but the sight of the pool of blood in the foyer stopped him dead.

“Diego?” Vanya asked quietly as they headed for the hospital room. “Are you - does it -?” Her words trailed off as everything in her body language screamed guilt.

“Nah, it’s not too bad.” Which may have been a white lie, but he’d been shot before, and he would take a slug in his shoulder over a bullet in Five’s brain every time.

Vanya didn’t look like she believed him, but before she could question him further, they entered the hospital room, and Allison let out a choked sound. Diego looked up and found her wide eyes locked onto Five’s unconscious body. “Is he -” she whispered, her voice teetering between terror and loss.

“No,” Luther said firmly. “He’s okay.” Except Diego knew for a fact he wasn’t, but Diego realized that wasn’t what Allison was asking about.

Diego’s eyes, in the meantime, were drawn toward the blood-soaked bed over which Ben was bent. Ben hadn’t even glanced up at their entrance. It looked like he was -

“Ben,” Vanya said, horror seeping into her voice, “are you doing _surgery?”_

Diego honestly hadn’t known what to expect inside the house, but Klaus’s stomach being cut open and Ben having gloves stained to the wrist with blood wasn’t even on the list of possibilities.

“Yes,” Ben answered, his voice clipped.

Diego finally found his voice and decided to do something with it. “Dude, do you even know _how?”_

Instead of replying, Ben clenched his jaw and continued doing . . . whatever it was he was doing to Klaus’s abdomen.

“Don’t worry,” Allison said, clear worry staining her tone. “I rumored him.” And there was something dark in her eyes when she said that, something Diego knew none of them should touch.

She let out a breath, as though trying to dispel whatever had just inhabited her head. “Let’s give Ben some space. He’s pretty . . . stressed.” _Stressed_ was a word Diego would use to describe how he’d felt taking exams at the police academy. _Completely out of his element_ or _scared shitless_ both would have been better descriptors for Ben, in Diego’s opinion. 

Allison ushered them out of the room and into the hallway, which is when she finally seemed to notice Diego. “Wait, were you shot? What happened?”

And wasn’t _that_ the question.

 _Diego saw something shift in the perp’s eyes, and maybe if he’d thrown his knife then, things would’ve turned out differently. But he_ hadn’t, _because he hadn’t recognized at the time what had appeared in those eyes: grim determination._

_So he threw the knife a millisecond later, when the muscles in the thug’s arm bunched and he began to move the gun. Diego hurled the knife at the same time the front door slammed open and Vanya was revealed in the doorway._

_The dagger spun toward its target quickly, but Diego knew it wouldn’t make it in time, because the gun was already nestled in Five’s hair -_

_Then the perp’s arm was flung forward, and his finger spasmed on the trigger at the same time Diego’s knife reached his forehead. The immediate pain in Diego’s shoulder was secondary, because all he could focus on was Five, who slowly dropped to his knees as the perp tilted to the side like a felled tree._

In the heat of the moment, Diego hadn’t analyzed the circumstances too carefully, caught up as he was in trying to prevent Full Freak Mode from Five. Now, though -

“I’m so sorry, Diego,” Vanya blurted out. Her words poured out rapidly, as though she were trying to cram them into as little time as possible. “I swear I didn’t mean to, I just saw the gun and, and, I guess I freaked out, because the next thing I knew -”

“Vanya.” Diego’s voice was quiet, which he hoped meant he sounded sincere. He knew he hadn’t been the most welcoming to Vanya at first, and he would be the first to tell anyone he found himself still resenting her at times for what she’d done to them. He _also_ knew Vanya knew that and tread carefully around him, but this instance was nothing she should be apologizing for. “What you did was fucking _awesome._ You saved Five’s life.” _You did what I couldn’t._ But he didn’t say that.

Vanya still looked conflicted, but Diego was so not in the mood for any more touchy-feely crap, so he tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. “So,” he said to Allison, “now that you and Ben are our resident doctors, any idea what to do with Five?”

Allison barked out a laugh that verged on the edge of hysterical. “I’m sorry, did the person with a bullet in his shoulder just ask about the health of someone else?”

“I’m fine,” Diego protested. Sure, there was a fair amount of pain, but it genuinely didn’t feel like it merited much more than bandages and pain meds.

Allison leveled a “I’m not buying it” stare at Diego. “Vanya,” she said without breaking eye contact with him, “step away from Diego.”

Vanya hesitated, then shifted herself out from under Diego’s arm and complied.

Diego thought he did pretty well, considering as soon as Vanya’s warmth disappeared, the room seemed to tilt on its axis. _Wait, that’s me,_ he thought a moment before he slammed into the ground.

Diego let out a groan as his shoulder shrieked in protest. “Are you kidding me?” he said, squinting up at Allison. “That was _so_ mean.”

Allison shrugged. “Act like an idiot, get treated like an idiot.”

Diego looked to Vanya for help, but she was trying to hide a smile behind a cough. Luther, in the meantime, let out a noise that sounded caught between a grunt of sympathy and laughter. “I hate this family,” Diego decided, resting his head on the floor. Now that he was off his feet, he felt drained.

“Luther, put Five down and help me get Diego into a bed,” he heard Allison say. Her voice sounded fuzzy and distant. He was more than happy to let his consciousness slip away, but before he could surrender completely, a phrase lit up like a beacon in his mind: _Don’t take him away._

Funny he couldn’t tell which brother he meant.

* * *

When Five first woke up the morning after the attack, he knew Diego and Klaus were dead. It was hard to explain just how he knew, but the fact was inescapable: they were both dead, and it was his fault. Again. They’d been shot right in front of him. They’d died _right in front of him._ This was, in a way, worse than when he’d found their bodies in the apocalypse. Yes, that had been his fault, too, but at least he hadn’t watched the life bleed from their eyes. The men that had killed his brothers had been after _him._ Five was the reason those men had entered the house. 

He’d killed them before by not being there, but this time they died _because_ he’d been there. He couldn’t seem to win, but wasn’t that the story of his life? 

He had to figure out what had happened after he’d blacked out. The last thing he remembered was Diego toppling to the side. He wondered if any of his other siblings were dead. (He wondered when he’d find a way to kill them, too.)

Five wasn’t sure he could handle another apocalypse.

He sucked in a curse when he first moved his limbs. His entire body ached in a way he couldn’t describe. Every twitch of his muscles sent a stream of needling pain directly to his brain. 

Ignoring every spasm, he threw open his door and rushed down the stairs. 

_Why don’t you blink there?_ Dolores asked. The question was innocent; her tone suggested she was not.

Five wondered if he could put into words the sensation that overtook him when he even considered blinking - the tight anticipation of waiting for a blow to land. It was like when he woke up with a crick in his neck and was afraid to turn his head in a certain direction, except amplified by a million.

Even if he could find a way to say it, it made him sound weak (afraid? Five wasn’t afraid of anything), so he said, “I’m just tired.”

She didn’t respond, but Five could hear her disappointment in the silence.

It wasn’t the first time he let Dolores down, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Right now, he needed to know who he could still save. 

He reached the bottom of the steps and dashed into the kitchen. Dolores noted how heavily he was breathing already, but he barely registered her words, because Diego was hunched over the counter, shoving half of a bagel into his mouth.

Diego had frozen in place when Five first entered the kitchen, but he relaxed and continued chewing when he seemed to realize who it was. “Hey, Five,” he mumbled around his stuffed cheeks.

Five didn’t appreciate being seen with his composure down (he probably looked like he’d just stumbled out of bed, which he _had,_ but no one was supposed to _know_ that), so he tried to cover it up with a witty comeback. “You’re . . . not dead.”

Diego flashed him a smile, which was only slightly marred by his bulging cheeks.. “It’s gonna take more than a bullet to take me down.” His eyes darted to the side. “Unless, uh, Allison sees me in here.” He lowered his voice to what he probably thought was a conspiratorial whisper. “She ordered me not to leave my bed.”

Now that the initial shock of seeing Diego alive was waning, Five was able to get a better look at his brother. The vigilante’s shirt was off, and his shoulder was wrapped tightly with bandages. His pupils were extremely dilated, suggesting to Five that he was still high from whatever drugs he’d been given, but he looked . . . good. Not dead, not dying. Not tipped over on the pavement, bleeding out.

_“Diego!”_

Diego flinched so hard that the other half of his bagel flew out of his hand. “Allison!” he squeaked in a register higher than Five had previously known his voice could reach. “How’s it, uh, going, with you -?”

“Diego.” Allison stood in the entryway to the kitchen, her arms crossed over her chest and the promise of pain in her eyes. “Bed. Now.”

Diego scowled, his previous fear seemingly forgotten. “I feel _fine,”_ he said, sounding almost like his normal, non-drugged self right before he went to lean against a chair and missed, falling flat on his face. “Owww,” he moaned from somewhere beyond Five’s line of sight.

Allison rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath. She then turned her gaze on the boy, her voice suddenly soft. “How are you feeling, Five?”

The question broke Five out of whatever daze he’d gone into when he’d seen Diego. He was here to check on his siblings’ well-being, not the other way around. Diego being alive was good, it was very good, but Klaus was still dead, which meant Five had still failed. “Where are the others?” Five said, urgency twisting his tone into harshness.

Allison blinked. “Wait, are you -?”

Five growled in frustration. She was taking too long to answer. Any other day, he would have just blinked to the next room, but seeing as he was -

 _Afraid to?_ Dolores input smugly.

\- _too tired_ today, he had to make do with shoving past Allison. Two siblings were accounted for - he still had three more to go.

No one was in the living room, and he couldn’t find anyone in the foyer, either. Every empty room Five entered ramped up his heart rate until he felt like he was gasping for breath.

 _Five, you’re panicking,_ Dolores said, her voice stern. He tried to slow his breathing. _Why don’t you check their rooms?_

Five pounded back up the stairs and threw open the door to Luther’s room. (How did regular people get from one place to another without wanting to kill themselves? This was _exhausting.)_

Luther was sitting on his bed, pulling on a pair of socks. He looked at Five with concern. “What’s wrong?” He lumbered to his feet. “Are you okay?”

Five didn’t bother answering. He was already turning on his heel to go to Vanya’s room. Vanya sleepily sat up at Five’s entrance, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Five? Whassa matter?”

Ben’s room, however, was empty.

Five had to put a hand on the doorframe to steady himself, which is when he finally noticed the gauze wrapped around his wrists and the sting buried beneath it. 

He whirled around to see Luther and Allison standing behind him, both looking worried. “Where’s Ben?” he croaked around the lump lodged in his throat. _How did he die this time?_

“He’s downstairs,” Allison said. “What’s going on?”

“Five,” Luther said, “you’ve been through a lot the last few days. Maybe you should take it easy.”

What did it matter that he’d been through a lot? Klaus was dead, and it was Five’s fault.

Five darted between them, and they parted before him as if he were carrying an infectious disease. _I am,_ Five thought viciously. _It’s called Death._

 _What will you do after you see Ben?_ Dolores asked, but Five knew she already knew the answer and was simply unhappy with it.

“Ben?” Five hollered as he skidded down the stairs. “Ben?”

Ben stumbled out of the hospital room, his hair mussed and his eyes wild. Purple bags hung under his eyes, and weariness seemed to trail after him like an invisible cape. _“Please_ tell me you’re okay,” Ben said upon seeing Five. “I literally can’t take any more catastrophes.”

Five nearly sagged to the floor in relief. Ben was alive. For the first time since waking up, Five felt his heartbeat start to slow. With the loss of adrenaline came a burning ache in his chest. _Klaus._

Ben squinted at Five. “What?” When Five stared at him blankly, he tossed his hands in the air. “Okay, sure, act like you weren’t just shouting for me.”

Five rested his forehead against the wall of the hallway. The plaster felt cool against his skin. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” He was so fucking tired.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Right,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “Hey, you don’t look so good. You should probably still be in bed.”

 _He’s right,_ Dolores chipped in.

“I’m good,” Five said.

They both stood there in an awkward silence that was intermittently broken by the snores coming from the kitchen. It seemed anyone had yet to move Diego from where he’d fallen.

This would have been a perfect time for Five to blink upstairs, or _anywhere_ that wasn’t here, but he was still having trouble mustering the courage to blink, and the bone-crushing exhaustion that overtook him prevented him from doing anything more than slide slowly to the ground.

Ben eyed him skeptically. “Yeah, you should _definitely_ be in bed.”

“That’s what you’d like to think,” Five said from his seated position on the floor.

Ben sighed. “I doubt you’d even make it up the stairs. Why don’t you join Klaus and me?”

Five’s breath evaporated from his lungs. It wasn’t just the words that left him reeling, but the casual way Ben had said them, as though he hadn’t completely skewed Five’s world. “Klaus . . . is in there?”

Ben cast him a funny look. “He was shot - where else do you think he’d be?”

 _The morgue,_ Five’s mind helpfully supplied. He clambered to his feet and stumbled to the partly closed door.

He hesitated before he went inside the hospital room. What if he’d misheard Ben? What if it was just Klaus’s body in there? Five felt jaws of steel start to compress his chest. He rested a hand on the doorknob and then stopped. The hope that had ignited in his rib cage threatened to suffocate him. He couldn’t let it. He _wouldn’t_ let it.

“I . . . can’t,” he said quietly to the door. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I _can’t.”_

He felt a presence at his shoulder and instantly tensed, his eyes flying open on instinct, but Ben simply reached past his head to gently push the door open. “It’s okay,” Ben said softly, even though Five knew it wasn’t okay to admit his weakness; it was _never_ okay to display anything that could be interpreted as vulnerability, but his feet were already moving him next to Klaus’s bed.

Klaus was even paler than normal, his dark goatee a stark contrast to his paper-colored skin. An IV drip was inserted in his arm, along with other tubes Five couldn’t identify. His eyes were closed, but his chest was rising and falling in steady intervals.

 _He’s alive._ Five nearly staggered at the weight of relief that accompanied those words. _Klaus is alive._

 _You didn’t kill him,_ Dolores said. _What now?_

It changed nothing.

Well, it might have changed something. Maybe he’d stick around a little longer, just to make sure Klaus recovered properly. And maybe for a reason that was a little more selfish, too.

He couldn’t stay. It was clear that in this timeline, Five’s presence only put his family in danger. It was simple math: remove himself from the equation, and his family would be safe. He had to leave - the sooner, the better.

_Where will you go?_

He didn’t know, and, frankly, it didn’t matter. As long as it was anywhere but here.


	7. Couldn't Put Me Back Together Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it. I actually finished a story. This is such a rare occurrence for me. Your comments fueled me so much - I genuinely would not have finished this without your guys's support. It was so nice and incredible to know people were enjoying this work.  
> This probably doesn't really matter to anyone except me, but I thought about drifting away from Karmina's lyrics for this last chapter and using a line from "Hold Me Now," by RED: "Crying out, these tired wings are falling, I need You to catch me." I felt like its tone better matched this chapter - HOWEVER, I was literally one line away from finishing the chorus to "All the King's Men," so I was like, "Screw it, I'll just stick with Karmina."  
> Anyways, enough of me, enjoy this dumpster fire of a conclusion. (Or don't, that's okay, too.)

# And I Will Run Fast, Outlast

### Couldn't Put Me Back Together Again

Five spent the rest of the day alternating between Diego’s room and the hospital room, but the next few days found him almost strictly in the hospital room. _I’m still going to leave,_ he told himself. First, it was: _I’ll leave when Diego is healthy._ A day later, Diego was up and moving around the house. It then became: _I’ll leave when Klaus wakes up._ The day after that, Klaus, while still confined to his bed, opened his eyes. Now it was: _I’ll leave soon._

 _That sounds an awful lot like, “I’ll leave later,”_ Dolores said.

The difference was that “later” implied he was pushing off the inevitable. That wasn’t what he was doing. (Probably.)

Even though Klaus had woken up a few times, he was still pretty out of it. Five hadn’t had a real conversation with him yet, although whether that was because Klaus was incoherent or the fact that Five actively avoided the hospital room whenever he knew Klaus was awake was anybody’s guess.

His other siblings wandered in every now and then, especially Ben, asking about how much sleep Five had gotten, how much he ate that day, and other inane questions that Five couldn’t be bothered to answer. Any time Five wasn’t in the hospital room, he was taking long walks around the city. If he had more to his name, he probably would have spent that time packing, but he possessed virtually nothing. When he first realized that, he’d been surprised. He’d owned more in the _apocalypse_ than he did now. There was probably some traumatic metaphor buried in that statement, but he retained neither the desire nor the strength to pursue it. 

He blinked sluggishly. He was currently in the hospital room, seated in a chair next to Klaus’s bed, and exhaustion weighed down every single limb. His entire body was begging him to sleep, to give his aching muscles some form of rest, but every time Five closed his eyes, Diego and Klaus were dead, so that would have to wait.

Klaus was unconscious in the bed, but Five blinked and suddenly there was blood everywhere, and Klaus’s vacant eyes were staring straight through Five, just like they had in the apocalypse. Five rubbed his eyes and opened them again, and this time the bed was empty, because Klaus hadn’t made it out of the foyer alive, he’d bled out on the floor and nobody had gotten to him in time -

Five swallowed the noise that sounded too much like a whimper and clenched his eyes shut, ignoring the immediate visuals of a dying Diego. _It’s in your head, it’s in your head,_ Five chanted to himself.

When he opened his eyes this time, Klaus was sitting up and looking at him.

“Five,” Klaus breathed, his eyes bright. “You’re alive.”

Before Five could stop himself, he spat, “That’s _my_ line, you ass.”

Klaus waved a hand through the air. “I knew I’d be fine,” he said, attempting to sound mystical. Five noted the wince that shuddered Klaus at the small movement.

“Shouldn’t you be drugged out of your mind?”

Klaus let out a low laugh tinged with lament. “Due to my, ah, previous lifestyle, whatever they gave me isn’t touching this.” He gestured to his whole body, leaving Five unsure as to whether he was referencing his wound or himself in general.

Klaus peered at Five intently. “Oh my, brother dearest, you look like hell.”

Five couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at himself in a mirror. Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember how long he’d been sitting in the hospital room. It could be midnight or noon the next day, for all he knew. Klaus’s observation awoke every sting etched onto his skin, every throb undulating in his bones, but he pushed all of it aside. He wasn’t stupid, he knew he needed rest, but he could get it later.

“Thanks,” he said dryly.

The silence stretched out between them, growing wider and more impregnable by the minute. Five knew what would end it, and that he had to be the one to say it, even if disgust scuttled across his skin at merely the thought of giving voice to the words.

“I’m . . . sorry,” Five said haltingly. Being the coward he was, he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at Klaus. “For what I said earlier.”

Everything inside of him shrieked in protest. By saying he was sorry, he was admitting he was wrong, which he wasn’t, _ever._

“Ooh,” Klaus tittered, and Five instantly regretted everything. “Did the Great and Powerful Five just _apologize?”_

“Forget it,” Five snapped and rose from his chair.

“No, wait, listen,” Klaus said, his tone wheedling. “I’m sorry, too, okay?”

Five furrowed his brow as he returned to his seat. “What are _you_ sorry for?”

Klaus idly twisted the sheets around his finger. “I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me,” he said, refusing to look up from the blanket.

Five scowled. “When have I ever needed _you?”_

The words came out harsher than Five intended, so he expected Klaus to recoil, but the medium only looked at him seriously. “After I was shot.”

It took Five a couple of seconds to process those words, but when he had, he rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. You were literally bleeding out. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

Klaus eyed the bandages on Five’s wrists, which Allison and Ben refused to let him remove. “But you were hurt,” he said.

Five tried to keep his annoyance in check, seeing as Klaus was injured. “Yeah, but it wasn’t your fault, and you were _shot.”_

“AHA!” Klaus practically screamed, lunging forward to point a finger at Five, which it seemed like he sorely regretted as his other hand clutched at his stomach. “I _got_ you,” he panted.

As they often did, Five’s emotions surged straight past confusion to land squarely on irritation. “What are you babbling about now?” he said through gritted teeth.

 _“You,”_ Klaus said. “I’m talking about _you._ Me bearing the blame for something that wasn’t my fault - does that ring a bell?”

The ire rose up quickly, like a towering black wave. “That’s not the _same. You_ can’t time travel. _You_ didn’t fail to stop the end of the world.”

 _“You_ couldn’t time travel, either. Not then, at least. Why else would you have been stuck there for so long?”

“I _could_ have if I’d figured out the equation sooner!”

“But you didn’t.” Klaus’s eyes bored into Five’s. “You didn’t, because you were thirteen fucking years old. Yes, we died in the apocalypse, and that was unfortunate.” He took a breath. “But something happened to _you_ in the apocalypse, too. You can’t keep ignoring that, or you’ll never be able to deal with it.”

“I don’t get to _deal_ with what happened, Klaus,” Five said, his eyes and chest and head suddenly burning like the ash that dripped from the sky, like the red, crackling heat that followed him wherever he went, “because it was what I deserved.”

Admitting that out loud was a strange combination of crushing relief and crumbling despair.

“Oh, hon, no,” Klaus said, horrified sadness seeping into his voice. “You don’t . . . you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Five was too tired to lie, so he said nothing.

“Five, is that why you don’t let us help you? Is that why you don’t let us _touch_ you? Has it always been about what you think you do or don’t deserve?”

Five had never really put that much thought into it, but it made sense. He didn’t hate affectionate touches from his siblings - he _craved_ them, which is why he couldn’t let himself have them. It wasn’t horror that gripped him when they brushed against him, when they let a hand linger on his shoulder - it was ecstasy he was so unused to feeling he’d assumed it was horror.

“Five.” Five tore his eyes away from the wall. There was an intensity in Klaus’s eyes, something Five couldn’t look away from. “You saved the world. You saved _us._ _You deserve good things.”_

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” Five said hollowly. Images of blood and fire tore through his mind, always accompanied by death, by screams of the dying.

“I don’t care. _I don’t care_ what you have done or what you will do.” Klaus looked almost desperately earnest, and Five didn’t know why. Why Klaus had devastation carved into the lines on his face.

If Five were being completely honest, it felt almost nice, if he got past the acidic nausea that crawled up his throat as his entire body rejected the concerned care Klaus was directing at him. It was _wrong._ It was _misplaced._ Five hadn’t been able to protect them, hadn’t been able to save them because he’d abandoned them. Five was the one who looked out for _them,_ not the other way around.

He owed them a debt.

 _And when will your debt be paid?_ he remembered Klaus asking.

 _When I’m dead,_ he had immediately spat, but he’d actually never asked himself that question. He’d assumed he would carry this guilt, this bruising weight for the rest of his life.

_What if you didn’t have to?_

The words were whispered so quietly that Five couldn’t tell if they were Dolores’s or his own.

His initial reaction was to scoff at the question. What did that even _mean,_ to not shoulder this debt? It wasn’t like he could suddenly pretend he hadn’t killed them.

That voice, whoever’s it was, persisted. _But they’re alive, aren’t they?_

“I just -” Klaus said. “I just want you to be okay.”

Five’s mouth curled into a little half-smirk. “‘Okay’ passed me by a long, long time ago.”

Klaus huffed out a chuckle. “Yeah, I guess ‘okay’ is shooting too high for a Hargreeves, huh?”

Five’s smirk turned into something almost real.

Laughter edged Klaus’s voice as he continued. “I mean, it’s only like our most normal, least confrontational sibling nearly destroyed the whole planet.”

“Says the addict who can talk to dead people,” Five said, surprised at how easily the taunt slid out of his mouth. 

Klaus giggled, and his laughter had that edge of someone running on their last dregs of energy. “Says the old man stuck in an adorable, tiny body.”

Five scowled, but, strangely, his heart wasn’t in it. This banter was one of the very few interactions he’d had in a while that felt natural, that didn’t remind him of what he’d done or how things could never be all right for him again. _I’m going to miss this,_ he realized with sudden clarity and a resulting lurch in his chest. He tried to drag that thought to the back of his mind, back into the recesses of his subconscious where he could go on pretending it didn’t exist, but it kept bouncing up like a tightly coiled spring.

His feelings didn’t matter; they never had. Emotions only served to hinder a job, to impede progress. They never changed what had to be done - all they did was make what had to be done harder to do, because it was never _about_ him. It hadn’t been during the apocalypse, and it wasn’t now. Five’s feelings against his siblings’ lives would lose every time, plain and simple.

He just wished it didn’t have to hurt so bad.

* * *

After Klaus passed out, Five walked out of the hospital room with bitter determination. It was three in the morning, which meant no one else would be awake, which meant now was as good a time as ever. Never mind that if he didn’t leave now, he might never muster the strength to again.

The hallway leading to the foyer looked impossibly, unrealistically long, and each step felt heavier than the last, slowing him down to a crawling pace, but before he knew it, he’d reached the end. The front door loomed in front of him, huge and imposing and terrible in its solid silence.

 _You don’t want to say goodbye?_ Dolores’s voice was careful.

He couldn’t. They wouldn’t understand. They’d try to stop him.

He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t let them.

He took a breath, squared his shoulders, told the exhaustion haunting his every movement, _Just a little longer,_ and opened the door.

The night was cool and damp with the promise of rain. It was still as it only was, as it only could be, at this eerie time between too late at night and too early to be morning, as if the world was holding its breath until something shattered the shroud of calm death that hovered in the air. Five breathed it in, letting it cling to his airway and invade his lungs, hoping it would be enough to dispel the lingering ache in his bones and the twinge in his chest. This time of night was a dream, and maybe it would guide Five in the right direction.

“Wow,” a voice drawled, gratingly loud in the quiet atmosphere. “Couldn’t even stop to say goodbye before disappearing.”

Five grit his teeth. He should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy. He turned to face the speaker, trying to force his posture into something relaxed and casual, as if he’d known this would happen. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” Five said, hoping he’d succeeded in sounding flippant.

Diego took a step away from where he’d been leaning against the front of the house. “Oh, I understand.” Hot anger flared in his eyes. “You’re leaving us again, but this time of your own free will. You’re being selfish.”

It sort of stung, in a place Five didn’t care to acknowledge, that Diego thought it was selfishness driving Five to do this. But if that was what Diego wanted to believe, if that would make it easier for him to deal with Five’s exodus, then so be it.

Five’s mouth was obviously of a different opinion, because it went ahead and said, “Selfish? Is it selfish that I dedicated my entire existence to saving the world? Is it selfish that I can see the bigger picture when you obviously can’t?”

“Please,” Diego said, steel encasing every syllable, _“enlighten_ me on this ‘bigger picture.’”

“If I stay, you all die.”

Diego actually laughed, though it sounded more like a bark. “Your ability to twist events into something they’re not would be _almost_ impressive, if you weren’t such a dumb-ass.”

Five bristled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It _means,”_ Diego said, taking another step closer, “that you think hanging around us will get us killed, when, really, you hanging around us _saved your life.”_

Diego’s words were like a blow to the face. Five nearly stumbled back at their pure audacity. Before he could formulate a response, Diego was steamrolling ahead. “If we hadn’t been there when those agents had come for you, what would’ve happened? If Ben and I hadn’t found you at the diner, what would’ve happened?” The look on Diego’s face at the latter question led Five to believe Diego dwelled on it often. “If any conclusions should be drawn from the last few weeks, it’s that _you’d_ die without _us.”_

Five’s face burned. What was even worse was the inkling that Diego might be right.

Diego strode forward until his face was inches away from Five’s. _“Especially_ now,” he said and gripped Five’s upper arm, hard.

Five’s body sang a high, screechy note of panic as the hand came into contact with his skin. His first instinct was to blink away, but a terrified part of his mind shoved its way to the front and screamed, _Don’t!_ So instead he froze, his fingers almost unconsciously clenching into fists.

“I knew it,” Diego said triumphantly, his fingers tightening around Five’s bicep. “You can’t use your powers.”

The words sent Five careening back to awareness. He couldn’t blink right now, but he had plenty of other skills he could utilize.

He yanked his captive arm back, and as Diego focused on shifting his weight, Five’s other hand darted forward and snagged a dagger from Diego’s belt. He swiped it at the hand clutching his arm, which Diego withdrew with a hiss.

“I’m leaving, Diego,” Five panted, holding the knife out in front of himself. “Don’t bother following.”

Five was confident he’d won, confident he’d proven he could handle himself fine, with or without powers. That was why, as he turned to leave, he was caught unawares by the tackle that slammed him to the ground.

Five’s bare knees and palms skidded across the pavement, igniting fresh, stinging pain in a body that still smarted from older injuries. He twisted himself onto his back, a growl escaping his clenched teeth. He’d managed to retain his grip on the dagger, so he raised his arm and prepared to stab it into Diego’s unwounded shoulder. It’d hurt like a bitch, but it wasn’t anything Diego couldn’t handle.

One of Diego’s hands almost casually knocked the knife out of Five’s palm. As Five incredulously gaped at his hand, Diego, breathing heavily, said, “See? You’re too tired to even fight. You wouldn’t last a day in your condition.”

Five couldn’t stand losing, but even worse was that look of smugness on Diego’s face, so, without putting too much thought into it, Five lifted his head up sharply and slammed his forehead into Diego’s.

The pain hit him hard, but instead of concentrating in his skull, it seemed to rake itself across his nervous system until his whole body was experiencing it.

He didn’t think Diego was faring much better. Diego had rolled off of him and was now kneeling on the ground, his head clutched in his hands as he groaned. “Oh, _fuuuuuuuck.”_

Five was still on his back, and he didn’t think he’d be moving any time soon. He tried counting stars past the haze of pain in an attempt to clear his head.

“That was shitty, that was _so_ shitty,” Diego griped as he rolled onto his back next to Five. “I fucking hate you.”

“Back at you,” Five said without heat.

They didn’t say anything for a while after that, both of them allowing that mystical shroud to settle around them once again.

Until Diego broke it for the second time that night. “If you leaving isn’t selfish, Five, then what would be selfish?”

Five didn’t answer. He breathed in the cool air, trying to remember what it was like sucking in hot ash and, for a moment, unable to.

“Five, what do _you_ want?”

Five thought of Klaus in the hospital room, trying his best to make Five crack a smile. He thought of Allison humming to herself in the kitchen when she thought no one was listening. He thought of Ben poring over textbooks of every kind in any room that housed his siblings. He thought of Vanya’s beautiful, haunting music seeping underneath the cracks in her floorboards, of Luther’s clumsy, endearing attempts to be sociable.

 _You deserve good things,_ Klaus had said.

 _Say it,_ Dolores urged.

“I want to stay.” The words burst from his chest, scraping his throat raw.

He was immensely glad for the rain that erupted from the heavens at that moment, because it meant he didn’t have to analyze what the wetness on his cheeks was.

“That’s fucking _right,”_ Diego said, sounding almost as pleased as Dolores’s warm, delighted laughter.

* * *

Their loud bickering as they'd wobbled through the front door had awoken Allison, who'd only rolled her eyes when she'd seen the cut on Diego’s hand and the bleeding skin of Five’s knees and palms. “Please tell me you at least _won_ whatever fight you were in,” she had said.

“I did,” Five and Diego had said at the same time, resulting in immediate glares from both soaked parties. 

The following two days had been nonexistent for Five, because he'd been in a blissful, coma-like slumber for the entirety of them. When he'd finally woken up, he'd felt more rested than he had in weeks. His body actually felt _good._

Since then, he dedicated a portion of each day to try and use his powers, to muster the courage to summon that intensity back to his fingertips. He missed being able cross a room in under a second. He craved the feeling of bending space to his will.

 _You should ask Klaus for help,_ Dolores always reminded him.

 _Yeah, right,_ Five always responded, but his certainty waned each time he said it.

His relationships with his siblings were strengthening every day, possibly due to the fact that the wall of guilt that separated him from them was diminishing every day. It wasn’t perfect - _he_ wasn’t perfect - but he was changing. Not quickly enough to be able to ask any of them for help just yet (he was still the better Hargreeves), but maybe eventually he could. Maybe one day he could muster that different kind of courage.

Meanwhile, the siblings - mostly Klaus - had devised a plan to ease Five into semi-normalcy. He still couldn’t handle prolonged physical contact; it hurt (healed) too much at once, but high-fives had become the new greeting in the Hargreeves household. Five had felt stupid when they’d first suggested it (“I’m not six, I don’t need to be _coddled”),_ and had felt even more stupid when they’d actually enacted it, knowing it was for his sake. 

(He would never in a million years admit he liked it.)

Five’s edges were too jagged to ever be completely okay, completely harmless, and his cutting, deadly words designed to keep people at bay would never recede for long, but he was _trying,_ and that _had_ to count for something, right?

 _I’m glad you’re here,_ Dolores said, yanking him from his thoughts, sounding more cheerful than she ever had during the apocalypse.

Five listened to Diego and Allison argue over something in the kitchen, shifting his attention away from their vast bookshelf. He’d been perusing their library, deciding what book to grab next. He actually had time to _read_ now, something he’d missed but had forgotten long ago.

_I’m glad you’re here._

He mulled over those words, turning them over in his mind so he could study them from every angle. It was . . . nice, actually, to know he’d made Dolores so happy. Too often was he the reason for her sorrow.

“Smallest brother of mine?” Klaus said, striding into the living room from the kitchen.

As Klaus drew nearer, Five automatically slapped his hand against the medium’s upraised one. (This new greeting also served as a quiet reminder that not everyone who lifted their arm above their head wanted to harm him.) “What?”

“We seem to be at an impasse. Would you rather have pizza or burgers for dinner?”

“Don’t care,” Five said dismissively, returning to his search.

“What did he say?” Diego hollered from the next room. “It’d better have been burgers!”

“I changed my mind,” Five said, still looking at the collection of books, but making sure his voice carried to the kitchen. “Pizza for sure.”

“Aha!” he heard Allison crow triumphantly. “Pizza it is!”

“Five,” Diego hissed. Five turned to see the vigilante poke his head into the living room. “You’re a filthy, back-stabbing traitor, and I hope you die.”

Vanya chose that moment to come down the stairs. She gazed at Diego with barely-disguised scorn. “Diego, that’s a _terrible_ thing to say.”

“He chose pizza,” Diego said.

She immediately lost interest. “Proceed.”

Five raised an eyebrow at the violinist. “I didn’t take you for the burger type.”

Vanya gazed at him with clear, sincere eyes. “I didn’t take you for a bitch, yet here we are.”

“Oh, wow,” Klaus breathed, his body nearly vibrating with giddiness. He perched on the edge of the couch. “I wish I had popcorn. This is _marvelous.”_

“Five,” Luther said as he exited the kitchen, kneeling next to Five after offering everyone he passed a high-five, “I want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

Five rolled his eyes. “Don’t make me regret picking pizza.”

“Noooo,” Ben moaned from a different room. “Does me dying count for _nothing_ in these votes?”

“No, it does not,” Klaus said gleefully.

“I feel like I should get at _least_ two.”

“I agree,” Diego said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Diego agrees!”

Allison sauntered into the living room, her phone up to her ear. “Diego can suck it, I’m already ordering.”

Thus began the debacle of deciding what kind of pizza to get, which involved a lot of yelling, threats, and, eventually, punching.

Five leaned against the bookshelf and observed this group of emotionally stunted, overgrown children physically fighting over pizza toppings. The ghost of a smile played over his lips.

 _I am, too, Dolores,_ he thought.


End file.
